Barbara Presnell
Piece Work
by Barbara Presnell
Praise for the book
"Charlie, the first-shift foreman at the textile mill, is proud to say, 'What I do means something in this world.' Other workers--Tonisha, Sherry, Jimmy, Bill--could say so too but probably won't. In Piece Work, one of the strongest, most truthful books of poetry I have ever read, Barbara Presnell says it for them, to them, with them, in lines of pure and heartfelt respect, [words] never spoken but always profoundly lived. In this fine poet's hands, they are more than words."
—Fred Chappell, North Carolina
Poet Laureate, 1997-2002
"Part poetry collection, part documentary history, this is poetry as community — the life of a mill in the voices of the millworkers."
—Seamus Thompson
About Piece Work
Meet Velma, the shrink wrapper, Pauline in sewing, Charlie, the first-shift foreman, Tonisha in knitting, and more as they tell of their frustrations and dreams for building lives for themselves and their families through hard work and steady routine. Piece Work is documentary poetry about what mattered and continues to matter to the everyday people who keep the machinery of the world running. ​​​
"I did get 604 dozen two days in a row.
As far as I know no one else has ever got that many.
In eight hours. It liked to a killed me."
—from "Pauline on the Bar Tacker"
Poems from Piece Work
​Pauline Learns to Sew
When I come back from having babies
they put me on sewing.
I could no more sew a straight line
than I could milk a chicken
but the other ladies helped me,
showed me how to set the needle
in the cloth to make a turn,
pull my thread to the side
so it wouldn’t jam up in the bobbin.
I won’t say I ever was much good at it,
but nobody’d accuse me a not trying.
A lifetime, it seems. Husband,
three kids growed. Mama passed.
Went from t-shirts and boxers to
sweat shirts then collars then elastic.
One day, outta the blue, they unbolted
the machines, loaded them in trucks,
hauled ‘em down to Mexico or someplace.
Nothing left on second floor
but concrete and empty bolt holes.
We was like family, us sewers.
You’d a thought we lost a brother or sister,
the weight we felt, grief tangling up among us.
You’d find broke needles in corners
for a while after, lengths a thread.
Ladies getting old by then just retired.
Young ones, they got on
somewhere else in the mill, some
other machine. Didn’t lose nobody from it,
not really. Took our spirit, that’s all.
You can work a 8-hour shift without spirit,
but it ain’t half worth it, you know?
"You’d a thought we lost a brother or sister,the weight we felt, grief tangling up among us."
