Jackleen Holton: “I put myself through college waiting tables, and have fallen back into it a few times when I was feeling less than enthusiastic about my career options. I was good at it, but not as good at managing the stress I caused myself in doing it. What I didn’t realize, at least in the early days, is the spiritual value of service, of discarding one’s self-importance for a time to give to others. I’ve since discovered that all work is service work.” (web)
Atar J. Hadari: “My first job where I was left in charge of anything was a pizza counter, which lasted over a year, though this poem is about my best friend’s business selling sofas direct to the public.”
Maria Guzman: “Over the past fifteen years, I’ve worked in the service industry as a receptionist, barista, spa attendant, restaurant hostess, and retail clerk. These jobs have taught me so much about the idea of shame, pride, and identity, and how all work is essential. As the daughter of immigrant parents, the idea of respecting workers is deeply engrained in my ethos and absolutely bleeds into my poetry.” (web)
Joshua Gottlieb-Miller: “I worked three different stints at Trader Joe’s, where the poem included here was inspired. I’ve always been an abstract thinker of a poet, and the grocery store grounded me in the textures and mundanity of every day. After my last stint at Trader Joe’s, I started a project where I recorded the coworkers quoted in these poems reading aloud the poems they were quoted in, and then I interviewed them about their lives. Many of the poems I wrote at the grocery store were informed by my sense of visibility or invisibility, and of course, during this pandemic, grocery store workers are both hyper-visible—recognized as essential—without always being seen as individuals. More recently, I’ve found myself in a service position at The Menil Collection, greeting visitors. I am, in writing this note, shocked to discover I’ve been writing and revising poems about the grocery store for a decade now.”
Claire Donzelli: “The years I worked as a baker, sales associate, and bridal stylist taught me so much about myself and the many ways, big and small, we can have a positive impact on others. I went from being a shy sales associate who was scared to say hello to customers to having the top conversion rate and being able to handle three bridal styling appointments at once. I currently study songwriting at Berklee College of Music, where my songwriting and poetry continues to be influenced by journeys, self-discovery, and everyday situations.”
Marylisa DeDomenicis: “I paid for college while raising my son and working as a server in various restaurants and bars, and as a banquet worker in the Atlantic City casinos while attending school. After taking a two-year reprieve to have brain surgery, I returned to school and received a BA in Humanities. I taught at a local ‘marginalized’ school. When it closed six years later, my husband and I opened a restaurant in a small rural town a bit farther away from the cities. As a poet, this has informed my work in ways that have broadened my insights, increased my compassion for others, and most importantly, I feel, made me a better person. I only hope to make the world a better place. I don’t want to shout, but I will if I have to.”
Lewis Crawford: “Growing up dirt poor in Georgia, it seems like everyone in my family has worked for either the food service or some other form of customer care. Personally, I spent six years selling cars at a dealership called Mike Bell Chevrolet where, instead of pushing two-dollar cheeseburgers, I sold used Corvettes and made small talk with the townsfolk. Though much of my work revolves around the complicated relationship I have with my grandfather and grandmother, I try to keep most of it in a simple, working-class vernacular, because that’s what I was raised on.”