a tilden township woman's poem inspired by a reading for this poetry project.

a stitched collage artist by the name of martha ressler, known to many as marty, attended the first thursday poetry night hosted by berks bards at goggleworks in the city of reading last thursday where the labors of our fingertips: poems from manufacturing history in berks county stood as the main feature before the open mic. she'd heard about the event through email updates. and she herself worked in the garment, meat-packing, steel, and automotive industries, outside of our region. so she had a personal interest in these local manufacturing history poems for that reason.

( martha ressler and a sampling of her art -- credit: jay ressler )

ressler grew up in cleveland and last lived in pittsburgh before moving to tilden township. but her diverse background in different manufacturing jobs in the past few decades kept her ears perked well as the poems from this project spread across the air on the first floor of goggleworks.

she felt inspired to write a poem of her own just from listening to the poems from this project and noticing a quick jump of a movement for the goal of a sudden edit by the poet. her poem is below, in gratitude of her agreeing to let it be shared as a part of this project. and the line about a baby bird in her poem references the poem which is from the memories of willie kramer of south heidelberg township, although the feather-y reminders portion is not in the excerpt posted here earlier on the blog. some mystery is still tucked in the words you've yet to see. you can find out about the winged ones once the book is released in a few weeks.

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poem for jennifer

by martha ressler

i came to hear poetry about working.

i expected a grizzled time worn poet, face like leather, muscles knotted, hands scarred.

instead stood this young woman, long light brown hair and so thin she could have walked out of her boots.

she read her poems, tentatively.

she had listened to workers, for hours.

they talked about their tools, their machines, their co-workers, and their losses. 

they spoke of their boredom and fleeting moments of joy.

i remember the one about the worker delighted, briefly, by a mother and baby bird, flying up in the rafters. 

i remember the poem about the sewing machine operator whose factory closed down. 

everyone moved on, but the women left the secrets they’d told, the laughs they’d shared, in a tangled knot of threads on the floor.

i liked that the young woman with long brown hair stopped reading, once, to reach for a pen. 

she wanted to correct “sewing” to “knitting.”

“i got them confused before i learned the difference.”

she learned that and so much more. she learned about extruders, swing shifts, piecework versus hourly pay, and the difference between warp and weft.

she listened and absorbed, asked questions, and then listened some more.

then she spun those stories of boredom, routine, and joy into silken word threads.