a poetry reading with berks bards as a third and final anniversary in august.

as a semi-introduction to the weekend, i shared poems from my third and final upcoming book of poems on manufacturing history of berks county at goggleworks in the city of reading at the first thursday poetry event hosted by berks bards, before its community open mic this august.

in 2015 and 2016, berks bards invited me to share poems from volumes one and two of the labors of our fingertips: poems from manufacturing history of berks county. so a third and final time in 2017 for the next and last book in this project made for a nice way to move into august. volume three will be out in late september.

oliver carter joined us as my special guest for the evening. i knew he'd have some great details to share from his jobs from before he retired. he answered the audience's questions about memories in his poem and some outside of it, from the main interview which helped to shape these lines. the poem crafted from his recollections is below, followed by scenes from the community open mic.

*

oliver carter, shillington borough | born: 1939

as a boy, i’d grown used to that hard hum, the rumbling

resonance of the railroad—in our house near seventh and

cherry streets. once we moved away, i had trouble sleeping

at night, those sounds, that vibrational pulsation missing.

back then, i can remember at least six movie houses along

penn street, one along fifth street in the city of reading,

a whole different spine to the downtown buzz and blur

of life, now history. i cooked meals through szabo food 

service, inc. for western electric for a few years. then

two months after my wedding, the military changed

the rules, said married men could forgo the draft. but

they already had me in their ranks—trained in the u.s.

army in fort jackson in georgia. i taught men exactly how

to operate combustion and diesel engines on missile sites

in fort belvoir, virginia, served as second in command 

in managing electricity at a power station by north star 

bay in thule, greenland. by 1965, i came home, took

a job at polymer plastics, extruded that material. ford

motor company gave us a fairlane model, challenging 

us to see what components we could redesign in plastic

for lighter weight in a single car, cheaper cost—bolts,

tubing, gas tanks. i left there for cartech, its buildings

along a bend in the oldest water around, the schuylkill 

river. i went from laborer—in the melt shop, hot mills,

rolling mill, annealing—to foreman, then supervisor

of the wire drawing department, after early days spent

extruding coils and rods, not cutting them but reducing

their size by stretching them through a custom die. once

i managed people, decided who would get what job each

day across the latest project, i understood how delicate

and complex it is to attempt to distribute work evenly,

to do a job well without racism dripping through some

complaints, guys taking orders from a man whose skin

isn’t quite like that of their own majority. yet most knew 

we were all just working to get through our days, put food

on our tables at home, hoping to have the energy to love

our kids, wives—in between overtime, slumber in blankets.