To Make a Living
{An Umbrella Special Feature}


Catherine Chandler,

a native of New York and Pennsylvania now living in Canada, has poems and translations published or forthcoming in Iambs and Trochees, Raintown Review, Blue Unicorn,  The Lyric,   Candelabrum, and other journals.

Her poems will soon be published in two anthologies in the U.K. and the U.S. Among other awards and honors, her poem “66” has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lectures in Spanish at McGill University, where she also works as financial administrator for a Health Canada/McGill University language-training project.


—Back to Work Poetry Contents—

Lines For Manon

The shop floor foreman hasn’t got a clue
to where the new employee’s coming from—
the incense and the ice of Xanadu,
the flame and fury of Byzantium.

He knows for sure she doesn’t give a shit
about the piecework in her packing crate—
she checks the clock; at five, she’s first to split.
It’s no damn wonder that she can’t make rate.

He’s noticed, too, the woman can be seen
each morning scribbling in a steno pad,
an island in the boisterous canteen.
Whatever’s eating her, she’s got it bad.

He’s right. Her day job’s pretty hard to take
with grace and grit; and she won’t last too long,
demanding honey-dew on coffee break;
for no good reason, bursting into song.

 
 
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