This weekend, the 9th annual 32BJ Art show displayed a variety of artwork from its 32BJ and 1199 members, including city and office building workers alike. The work featured paintings, sketches and a live show, which included singing, poetry and performance art.
Read more about this amazing event, which connected worker/artists with a supportive platform. This display of art in various mediums emphasizes the importance of labor/arts events such as this one: they open up possibilities and lift up cultural production in the lives of city and office workers.
Philip Levine wrote unflinchingly and with nuanced craft about American working class life. Levine died on Saturday, February 14th, at the age of 87. Hear him talk about and recite his poem, “They Feed the Lion” at the National Endowment for the Arts website.
Read more on this elder and former Poet Laureate of American poetry, and his influence on poetry readers in this discussion in The New York Times. Levine’s work is known especially to our nation’s working class and immigrant writers who engage questions of labor, relationships and social justice.
Poet Mark Levine’s (no relation) recalls studying writing with Philip Levine as a college student in the essay, “How Difficult it is to Live.”
Poetry Foundation has an illuminating overview of Levine’s work, themes and affinities.
This book was initially listed in The New Labor Forum Spring 2014 Issue
By Peggy Taylor and Charlie Murphy
New Society Publishers, 2013
This exciting guide describes more than a hundred simple, easy-to-lead activities that use arts and crafts, creative writing, theater improvisation, storytelling, music, or dance to break down barriers and build stronger communities for social change.
A conversation about workers, communities and social justice
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