Happy New Year? January 5, 2009: Thanks to some offline encouragement, I’ve decided to start re-posting my column here at Harriet once a month or so. In my time away, I’ve been penning reviews of new working-class poetry volumes (an extremely critical one of the highly problematic The Way We Work: Contemporary Writings from the American Work Place, edited by Peter Scheckner [...] by Mark Nowak

Labor Day Adieu August 31, 2008: Several years ago in my essay for a special symposium on Adrienne Rich published in the Virginia Quarterly Review (82:2), I outlined a series of industrial accidents and union/social movement engagements with capital that had all occurred during the week the essay was written: 42 workers trapped in a flooded Chinese coal mine… 600,000 Korean [...] by Mark Nowak

“The Republicans are coming! The Republicans are coming!” August 29, 2008: 2.86 miles. According to Mapquest.com, that’s the distance from my front door to the barricades outside the entrance to the Republican National Convention, which opens on Monday at the Xcel Energy Center here in Saint Paul, Minnesota. On Labor Day no less. Four years ago, when we as a nation supposedly democratically decided that four more years [...] by Mark Nowak

Fences, Workers’ Theatre, & the CPT(s) August 20, 2008: One of the unadulterated joys of living in the Twin Cities is the presence of the Penumbra Theater just a few blocks down the road from my house. Founded in 1976 by director Lou Bellamy, Penumbra has embarked on a five year project to stage each play in August Wilson’s 20th century magnum opus—which is, as many of you may know, a bringing [...] by Mark Nowak

Summer Shorts August 16, 2008: As I bask in the humid afternoons of August sipping a mint julep on the shore of Lake Wobegone (ok, I’m actually utterly landlocked in my office, wearing a COSATU t-shirt, sans beverage, but who’s counting), I wanted to celebrate the season of pants at or above the knees (the ones we wear over our briefs… well, most of us) with a few [...] by Mark Nowak

Prairie Style: An interview with C.S. Giscombe August 12, 2008: Mark: There’s a wonderful anecdote early in June Jordan’s Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood about waiting as a young child for the arrival of a train, that “moaning in the dark,” that “transitory signal from a hidden fire” that “eased its promise into the night.” I seem to be reminded of this Jordan passage every time I read your [...] by Mark Nowak

Rêves de poussière (Dreams of Dust) August 11, 2008: The following email message appeared in my inbox over the weekend: OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) - National radio says at least 31 people have been killed in a mudslide at an unofficial gold mine in Burkina Faso. There are thousands of unofficial, or bush mines, in West Africa. Desperately poor villagers eke out a living, risking their lives to [...] by Mark Nowak

An interview with Phinder Dulai August 7, 2008: In one of my earliest posts here at Harriet (on the conference celebrating the retirement of poet, editor, and Japanese-Canadian internment activist Roy Miki, “Tracing the Lines”) I mentioned being introduced by my transnational roommate, Jeff Derksen, to Phinder Dulai and his work. Since May, I’ve had a chance to read both of Phinder’s [...] by Mark Nowak

I Fought the Law August 5, 2008: Gravitating into my book-holding and keyboard-typing fingers of late have been a series of texts that articulate modern and contemporary poetry and poetics to issues of habeas corpus, governmentality, the state (particularly the judicial branch/state-sanctioned executions), and human rights—perhaps not so surprising in a country engaged in [...] by Mark Nowak

Seeds of Fire August 3, 2008: Seeds of Fire: Contemporary Poetry from the Other USA, edited by Jon Andersen, appeared earlier this year from Smokestack Books in Middlesbrough, UK. Mike Alewitz’s stunning mural from the Roosevelt School in New Brunswick, New Jersey (“Temporary Sanity”) graces the cover (and those not familiar with Alewitz’s work should check out [...] by Mark Nowak