A weekly poem
The Poetry of Work
Public-domain poems on work, craft, and vocation. A quiet pause in the working day.
People have long turned to poetry to make sense of their working lives, the hard parts and the good. This is a small weekly gathering of those poems, drawn entirely from the public domain: voices from across the centuries on labor and craft, the sea and the land, vocation and rest.
Work keeps changing, and quickly. Sitting for a moment with how earlier generations wrote about it is one way to keep the human part of it close. Each week brings one poem, paired with a public-domain photograph, posted on LinkedIn.
The project is curated by Oliver S. Crocco, a professor of leadership and human resource development, with care taken to get the sources and the public-domain status right.
This week
John Greenleaf Whittier, “The Huskers”
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Sources
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 to 1892), "The Huskers" (1850). Public domain. Source: telelib.com (Words Home / John Greenleaf Whittier poems), "The Corn-Song"; cross-verified against archive.org full text of "Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier".
Photograph: husking corn, Grundy County, Iowa. Arthur Rothstein, 1939. Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Collection. Public domain.
Archive
Past poems
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Village Blacksmith”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 to 1882), "The Village Blacksmith" (1840). Public domain. Source: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "The Village Blacksmith," Cambridge Edition text reproduced in the Penn State Mechanical Engineering / MTAH literature collection (canonical wording cross-checked against the DLTK and AllPoetry full texts).
Photograph: a blacksmith shop in Marshall, Texas. Russell Lee, 1939. Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Collection. Public domain.
John Milton, “Sonnet 19: When I Consider How My Light Is Spent”
John Milton (1608 to 1674), "Sonnet 19: When I Consider How My Light Is Spent" (1673). Public domain. Source: Representative Poetry Online (RPO), University of Toronto Libraries.
Photograph: a Mexican farm worker at rest, New Mexico. Dorothea Lange, 1936. Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Collection. Public domain.
Paul Laurence Dunbar, “The Poet and His Song”
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872 to 1906), "The Poet and His Song" (1896). Public domain. Source: Poets.org (Academy of American Poets); cross-verified against Wikisource (The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar) and the Lehigh University African American Poetry digital anthology (Lyrics of Lowly Life, 1896).
Photograph: cradling wheat near Christiansburg, Virginia. Dorothea Lange, 1936. Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Collection. Public domain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Builders”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 to 1882), "The Builders" (1849). Public domain. Source: All Poetry (cross-verified against Poem Analysis).
Photograph: a carpenter building a house on the Black Canyon Project, Canyon County, Idaho. Russell Lee, 1941. Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Collection. Public domain.
Walt Whitman, “I Hear America Singing”
Walt Whitman (1819 to 1892), "I Hear America Singing" (1860). Public domain. Source: Academy of American Poets (Poets.org).
Photograph: Power house mechanic working on a steam pump. Lewis Hine, 1920. U.S. National Archives. Public domain.
William Blake, “And did those feet in ancient time”
William Blake (1757 to 1827), "And did those feet in ancient time" (c. 1808). Public domain. Source: American Literature (americanliterature.com).
Photograph: the mill district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Jack Delano, 1940. Library of Congress, FSA/OWI Collection. Public domain.
Lucy Larcom, “Weaving”
Lucy Larcom (1824 to 1893), "Weaving" (1869). Public domain. Source: Wikisource, Poems (Larcom), 1869 edition (Fields, Osgood, & Co.); transcribed from the original page scans (Page:Poems_Larcom.djvu/150). Opening corroborated by Poetry Foundation and Poetry Nook; closing stanza corroborated by the AmericanStudier blog.
Photograph: a weaver at her loom, Paterson, New Jersey. Lewis Hine, 1937. U.S. National Archives, WPA National Research Project. Public domain.
William Ernest Henley, “Invictus”
William Ernest Henley (1849 to 1903), "Invictus" (1888). Public domain. Source: Academy of American Poets (Poets.org).
Photograph: rough sea at Bognor, Sussex, England. Detroit Publishing Co., c. 1899. Library of Congress. Public domain.
Paul Laurence Dunbar, “We Wear the Mask”
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872 to 1906), "We Wear the Mask" (1895). Public domain. Source: Academy of American Poets (Poets.org).
Photograph: portrait of a young man, from W. E. B. Du Bois's American Negro exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition. Library of Congress. Public domain.
Thomas Hood, “The Song of the Shirt”
Thomas Hood (1799 to 1845), "The Song of the Shirt" (1843). Public domain. Source: Project Gutenberg, The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood (ebook 15652).
Photograph: Lewis Hine, garment workers, Upper East Side, New York, c. 1912. National Child Labor Committee, Library of Congress. Public domain.
Sarojini Naidu, “Coromandel Fishers”
Sarojini Naidu (1879 to 1949), "Coromandel Fishers" (1905). Public domain. Source: Project Gutenberg, "The Golden Threshold" by Sarojini Naidu (eBook #680), plain-text edition; cross-checked against Wikisource.
Photograph: harbour at Svolvær, Nordland, Norway, c. 1900. Public domain.
William Wordsworth, “The Solitary Reaper”
William Wordsworth (1770 to 1850), "The Solitary Reaper" (1807). Public domain. Source: Wikisource: Poems, in Two Volumes (Wordsworth, 1807), Volume 2, "The solitary Reaper" (first-publication text).
Photograph: Dorothea Lange, field worker, San Joaquin Valley, California, 1938. FSA, Library of Congress. Public domain.
Walt Whitman, “Song of the Broad-Axe”
Walt Whitman (1819 to 1892), "Song of the Broad-Axe" (1856). Public domain. Source: Project Gutenberg, Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (eBook #1322).
Photograph: a ship-carpenter's workshop, Altonaer Museum, Hamburg. Christoph Braun (CC0).
Kahlil Gibran, “On Work”
Kahlil Gibran (1883 to 1931), "On Work" (1923). Public domain. Source: Project Gutenberg (The Prophet, eBook #58585, Kahlil Gibran).
Photograph: a woman at a spinning wheel, Sogn og Fjordane, Norway, early 1900s. Fylkesarkivet i Sogn og Fjordane. Public domain.