I Have No Clue

Poetry. These poems are interesting exhortations, rants and meditations on subjects relating to working. They are bound to strike a chord in anyone who has ever had to make a living. When I read the inimitable Jack Wiler, I can't tell if I'm laughing or crying, or being punched in the teeth by the Zeitgeist. Here is true grit, true rage, true fear and lust, true language. If you hate your job, read this book. Read it anyway. Face it and laugh (Alicia Ostriker). I could hear the worms in the walls. / Old house borers clicking in the timbers of the attic. / Termites tumbling over each other / in the damp wood of the basement. / Everything working very fast hastening decay. / Work fast we all cried. / There is the devil's work to be done. / Work fast. (The Devil's Workshop). In Jack Wiler's world it's always busy for no discernible reason except so you can tell the difference between the working stiff and the stiff stiff. Wiler's the Poet of Scabs and Warts, where every glimmer has a slammer, a can of can't, a dose of don'