The Work Is Done When We Are Dead

"Throughout its 100 pages, The Work Is Done When We Are Dead considers work, and the many forms work can take, with a particular interest in types of labour that are unpaid, underappreciated, or even entirely unrecognized. The poems run the gamut from variations on traditional forms, such as sestinas, to prose poetry, to experimental approaches that do not yet have names, which parallels the manifold ways that work itself manifests. The collection is divided into four sections: 1) "Hired Hands," which focuses on more conventional paid work; 2) "Body of Work," which considers the work we do to build identities and maintain our physical selves; 3) "Cardiac Output," which contemplates the work that is required to maintain interpersonal relationships; and, 4) "New Blood," which envisions possible futures for work, in which work is more than a necessary drudgery, and becomes instead a way to ensure human flourishing"--