White Collar

A poem of mine is included in The White Collar Book:  Poetry and Prose of Canadian Business Life (edited by Bruce & Carolyn Meyer, Black Moss Press), which appeared on bookstands (virtual and real) just before Christmas.  I cracked it open over the holidays, and found it an enjoyable and engaging read.  Included here are fine poems by contemporaries such as Brian Bartlett, Marilyn Bowering, April Bulmer, Bill Howell, Raymond Souster, Robert Sward, and Priscilla Uppal; a stand-out story by Barry Callaghan, an intriguing and suggestive e-mail exchange by Steven Heighton, plus choice selections culled from the archives of Canadian letters – “My Financial Career” by Stephen Leacock, “The Stenographers” by PK Page, “Five Percent” by Robert Service, and “Annual Banquet: Chambre de Commerce” by AM Klein.  Needless to say, it gladdens me to be included in this company. One eyebrow-raising aspect of the collection is that its foreword is written by none other than Conrad Black – and a humble, well-written piece of prose it is, quite free of his usual overbearing prolixity.

My own contribution to the collection is a dark and brooding pantoum – not strictly autobiographical, although I’ve definitely been through psychological periods like this.  With its two-steps-forward, two-steps-back pattern (the second and fourth line of each stanza becomes the first and third line of each succeeding stanza), the pantoum is such an apt form to express the state of being stuck.    

PANTOUM OF A HIRED MAN

He woke to dawn’s grey tombstone light.

Faces he met that day were a blur.

Each day seemed like any other:

A fidging of channels, all the same. 

Faces he met that day were a blur:

If they said hello, he said hello back.

Fidging of channels it was, all the same. 

Riding on subways, he felt like a number.

If they said hello, he said hello back:

If they asked him how he was, he said, “I feel fine.”

But riding on subways, he felt like a number.

If he showed up or didn’t, it didn’t really matter.

If they asked him how he was, he said, “I feel fine.”

And the wife was good, the kids were great,

But if he showed up or didn’t, it didn’t really matter:

Within him, a strife he could not define.

And the wife was good, the kids were great.

When he wandered into rooms, he wondered why,

Within him a strife he could not define.

All was decided: no need to complain.

When he wandered into rooms, he wondered why.

She was there, they were there; pleasure, and laughter.

All was decided: no need to complain.

He had his papers and tasks, so what was he after?

She was there, they were there, and pleasure, and laughter,

But words like “drag” and “heartache” came quickly to mind.

He had his papers and tasks, so what was he after?

This too would prove hard – oh, so hard – to define.

Words like “drag” and “heartache” came quickly to mind.

Each day seemed like every single other.

Faces he met were always a blur

   As dawn dimmed to dusk: grey tombstone light.

A sidenote:  in earlier drafts line four was “a switching of channels, all the same” – a dull note that never really satisfied, that made the whole poem feel inchoate.  Just tweaking that to the unusual “fidging” seemed to sharpen the poem’s focus, clarify its angst, make it feel finished.

Certain funky aspects of this collection will stretch and challenge some readers' expectations. It’s fair to say that for most of us, the term “white collar” conjures up notions of “office land” – that gauzy realm of work cubicles and corner offices, administrivia, pecking orders, board meetings, and the like.  As per this Wikipedia definition. Most of the works in White Collar deal with just that – but others (including some of the best in the collection) are written about or from the point of view of an ultrasound technician, a foot doctor for the homeless, a GP, a dentist, a creative writing teacher, a piano teacher. Hmm.  Even teaching – is it really white collar work?  When our work overlaps with the office – attendance, marks submission time – it does take on that quality. So, too, with those interminable meetings.  Most teachers I’ve asked, though, find it hard to think of themselves as “white collar workers” per se. Open collar, perhaps?  A profession nearly as old as the notorious “oldest profession”, for most of the last two millennia, it’s been definitely black collar, as in the distinction between “town” and “gown”.  In the broadest definition, I suppose, anything not strictly “blue” could be considered white collar, including a surgeon in his scrubs.  

One poem, Seymour Mayne’s “For the Dentist Who Extracted My Last Wisdom Tooth” gave me pause: does it really belong here? Another – H. Masoud Taj’s “The Domain of the Inbetween” – is a lengthy meditation on the metaphysics of structures: dwellings, walls and the like. One could say that these evoke the psychological/spiritual underpinnings of white collar work. Inclusions such as these do serve, nevertheless, to make White Collar a varied and refreshing read.