Contemporary Working-Class Poetry: Lots of Light, Very Little Heat

High-octane class anger and indignation is largely absent among the usual suspects: trade unionists, minorities, college students, feminists, and in both the "liberal" print dinosaurs as well as the new electronic media. Craig Paulenich's Blood WiIITeII, for example, casts a wistful spotlight on his forlorn industrial heartland; Sy Hoahwah's Velroy and the Madischie Mafia employs a wry humor to dramatize the Native American experience in contemporary Comanche country; while Julie Sheehan's witty hero in Bar Book, a cocktail waitress, is an American everywoman - smart but powerless, and abused by every man - in a perverse service economy. According to the jacket copy, his own father - after release from prison - was murdered in a brawl.