“The 57-year-old’s verse, like the courses that empower workers that he sets up around the country, is poetry that engages with the world of work, including its impasses and oppressions. He tracks the places that refined—or literary and academic—language meets everyday speech, as in the poem below, ‘Linemen'”:
Thirty thousand linemen in bucket trucks
Streaming into your distressed environs
Hitting sixteen-hour shifts, repairing
Lines that keep your identities well lit
