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Column 389

Temporary Job

Intro by Ted Kooser
09.02.2012

Per­haps by the time this col­umn appears, our econ­o­my will have improved and peo­ple who want to work can find good work. Min­nie Bruce Pratt, who lives in Syra­cuse, N.Y., has a new book, men­tioned below, in which there are a num­ber of poems about the dif­fi­cul­ties of find­ing work and hold­ing on to it. Here’s an example:

Temporary Job

Leaving again. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be
grieving. The particulars of place lodged in me,
like this room I lived in for eleven days,
how I learned the way the sun laid its palm
over the side window in the morning, heavy
light, how I’ll never be held in that hand again.

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Disclaimer

We do not accept unsolicited submissions

We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2011 by Minnie Bruce Pratt from her most recent book of poems, Inside the Money Machine, Carolina Wren Press, 2011. Reprinted by permission of Minnie Bruce Pratt and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.