# Working Classics

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***Working Classics: Poems on Industrial Life*** is a literary [anthology](/source/Anthology) of American [working-class](/source/Working-class) [poetry](/source/Poetry) written during the second half of the 20th century.

The book identifies within post-[World War II](/source/World_War_II) [American literature](/source/American_literature) an emerging trend: a new poetry about mills and [mines](/source/Mining) and [blue-collar](/source/Blue-collar) neighborhoods. Much of this verse was inspired by the postwar industrial prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s followed by rapid [deindustrialization](/source/Deindustrialization) in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. The anthology offers nearly two hundred poems by seventy-five poets, most of whom are of the [baby boomer](/source/Baby_boomer) generation.

The collection was conceived and compiled by [Peter Oresick](/source/Peter_Oresick) and further developed with co-editor [Nicholas Coles](/source/Nicholas_Coles), both of the [University of Pittsburgh](/source/University_of_Pittsburgh). This "new work writing," argue the editors, "has its antecedents not with the [proletarian literature](/source/Proletarian_literature) of 1930s, but more with [Walt Whitman](/source/Walt_Whitman), [William Carlos Williams](/source/William_Carlos_Williams), the [Beats](/source/Beat_poetry), and [Confessional poetry](/source/Confessional_poetry)."

*Working Classics* is frequently used in U.S. and [Canadian](/source/Canada) university courses in [literature](/source/Literature) and [labor history](/source/Labor_history_(discipline)). It remains in print since its first publication in 1990 by the [University of Illinois Press](/source/University_of_Illinois_Press).

The anthology's strong critical reception and sales, as well as a prompt within a [book review](/source/Book_review) of *Working Classics* by [Fred Pfeil](/source/Fred_Pfeil) in [The Village Voice](/source/The_Village_Voice), spawned a sequel in 1995 by the same editors called *[For a Living: The Poetry of Work](/source/For_a_Living)*. This companion volume features poems about the nature and culture of nonindustrial work in the current [Information Age](/source/Information_Age) or [service economy](/source/Service_economy), i.e. work that may be categorized as [white collar](/source/White-collar_worker), [pink collar](/source/Pink_collar), clerical, or professional.

"A great feast of an anthology. . . . Here is a volume of great diversity, challenge, and reward, a Midwestern dark horse of a book whose riches, coming from the coal mines, canneries, sweatshops and factories of the country, compose an unprecedently American (and slightly Canadian) experience". Jessica Greenbaum, The Nation[1]

## Selected Poets in *Working Classics*

[Maggie Anderson](/source/Maggie_Anderson) · [Antler](/source/Antler_(poet)) · [Robert Bly](/source/Robert_Bly) · [Jim Daniels](/source/Jim_Daniels) · [Patricia Dobler](/source/Patricia_Dobler) · [Stephen Dunn](/source/Stephen_Dunn) · [Tess Gallagher](/source/Tess_Gallagher) · [John Giorno](/source/John_Giorno) · [Donald Hall](/source/Donald_Hall) · [Edward Hirsch](/source/Edward_Hirsch) · [Richard Hugo](/source/Richard_Hugo) · [David Ignatow](/source/David_Ignatow) · [June Jordan](/source/June_Jordan) · [Lawrence Joseph](/source/Lawrence_Joseph) · [Philip Levine](/source/Philip_Levine_(poet)) · [Robert Mezey](/source/Robert_Mezey) · [Lisel Mueller](/source/Lisel_Mueller) · [Joyce Carol Oates](/source/Joyce_Carol_Oates) · [Ed Ochester](/source/Ed_Ochester) · [Jay Parini](/source/Jay_Parini) · [Kenneth Patchen](/source/Kenneth_Patchen) · [Vern Rutsala](/source/Vern_Rutsala) · [Michael Ryan](/source/Michael_Ryan_(poet)) · [James Scully](/source/James_Scully_(poet)) · [Gary Soto](/source/Gary_Soto) · [Susan Stewart](/source/Susan_Stewart_(poet)) · [Tom Wayman](/source/Tom_Wayman) · [James Wright](/source/James_Wright_(poet)) · [Robert Wrigley](/source/Robert_Wrigley)

## References

1. "Industrial-Strength Poetry". *The Nation*. October 1990.

- Oresick, Peter and Nicholas Coles (eds.) (1990). [*Working Classics: Poems on Industrial Life*](https://archive.org/details/workingclassicsp00ores). Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-06133-0.
- Coles, Nicholas and Peter Oresick (eds.) (1995). *For a Living: The Poetry of Work*. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-06410-0.

## External links

- [Look inside *Working Classics* at Google Books](https://books.google.com/books?id=1s9g0O9mKxgC)

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