Tag Archives: Labor Day

A Blacksmith Poem for Labor Day

By Robin Bates | Published: September 3, 2023

A Seamus Heaney blacksmith poem for Labor Day.

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Think of Work Sweat as “Odorous Oil”

By Robin Bates | Published: September 4, 2022

Barrett Browning celebrates work in this sonnet, even as she alludes back to God’s curse on Adam in “Paradise Lost” and Genesis.

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A Day of Rest for the Working Class

By Robin Bates | Published: September 5, 2021

Labor Day In observance of Labor Day, here’s a poem by that bounciest of poets, Robert Service. Although it’s a bit of a caricature of the working man, I like the way he talks of rest. Labor Day, after all, celebrates the workers by giving them a special day off. And they don’t even have […]

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A Poem for Labor Day

By Robin Bates | Published: September 1, 2019

Monday – Labor Day I can think of few poems that better capture the spirit of Labor Day than Daniel Pinsky’s “The Shirt.” I love how it moves seamlessly—I use the adverb deliberately—between the craft of labor and the conditions of labor. Sometimes we see a lovingly described piece of clothing, sometimes we hear about […]

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Langston Hughes on the Dignity of Work

By Robin Bates | Published: September 3, 2018

Langston Hughes understood working men and women as well as anyone, as his poem “Brass Spittoons” demonstrates.

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“Find Work,” an Answer to Every Grief?

By Robin Bates | Published: September 4, 2017

Rhina P. Espaillat captures the ambivalent nature of work in the poem posted for Labor Day. It can be ennobling but too much emphasis on it can rob us of our humanity.

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Self Respect through Collective Action

By Robin Bates | Published: September 3, 2012

Novelist Rachel Kranz shows workers finding a sense of self respect through union action.

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