 |
| Triangle Factory Fire. The hoses couldn't reach the fire. |
Most of you know that I'm a student in addition to the other things I do. I had to do an analysis of a work of poetry for a Literary Criticism class. I chose this poem, Shirt, because it evoked very strong images in me...in short, it spoke to me. If you really, really read and digest the poem, it will haunt you. Here is the text of the poem:
Shirt, by Robert Pinsky
The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams,
The nearly invisible stitches along the collar
Turned in a sweatshop by Koreans or Malaysians
Gossiping over tea and noodles on their break
Or talking money or politics while one fitted
This armpiece with its overseam to the band
Of cuff I button at my wrist. The presser, the cutter,
The wringer, the mangle. The needle, the union,
The treadle, the bobbin. The code. The infamous blaze
At the Triangle Factory in nineteen-eleven.
One hundred and forty-six died in the flames
On the ninth floor, no hydrants, no fire escapes—
 |
| A pile of 40 bodies of women that jumped to avoid the flames |
The witness in a building across the street
Who watched how a young man helped a girl to step
Up to the windowsill, then held her out
Away from the masonry wall and let her drop.
And then another. As if he were helping them up
To enter a streetcar, and not eternity.
A third before he dropped her put her arms
Around his neck and kissed him. Then he held
Her into space, and dropped her. Almost at once
He stepped up to the sill himself, his jacket flared
And fluttered up from his shirt as he came down,
Air filling up the legs of his gray trousers—
Like Hart Crane's Bedlamite, "shrill shirt ballooning."
Wonderful how the patern matches perfectly
Across the placket and over the twin bar-tacked
Corners of both pockets, like a strict rhyme
Or a major chord. Prints, plaids, checks,
Houndstooth, Tattersall, Madras. The clan tartans
Invented by mill-owners inspired by the hoax of Ossian,
To control their savage Scottish workers, tamed
By a fabricated heraldry: MacGregor,
Bailey, MacMartin. The kilt, devised for workers
to wear among the dusty clattering looms.
Weavers, carders, spinners. The loader,
The docker, the navvy. The planter, the picker, the sorter
Sweating at her machine in a litter of cotton
As slaves in calico headrags sweated in fields:
George Herbert, your descendant is a Black
Lady in South Carolina, her name is Irma
And she inspected my shirt. Its color and fit
And feel and its clean smell have satisfied
both her and me. We have culled its cost and quality
Down to the buttons of simulated bone,
The buttonholes, the sizing, the facing, the characters
Printed in black on neckband and tail. The shape,
The label, the labor, the color, the shade. The shirt.
I wrote a paper analysing the poem, you might find it interesting. Feel free use it in your research or work as long as you cite it.
 |
| 100th anniversary memorial for Triangle Fire in New York |
Upon Respect for a Common Item
Examining “Shirt” by Robert Pinsky
By Vicki Michalski
University of
Maryland University College
A simple object rarely given any
thought evokes in author and former national poet laureate Robert Pinsky a
collection of images focusing upon the shirt he wears; of the fabric, of
design, of colors, of pattern, of the construction and elements of that shirt, of
the machinery that made the fabric and the garment, of the people that made his
shirt, of the history of those that labored to make shirts in the past, of the
owners of the mills in which those laborers worked, and even of the tragic loss
of life of many of them in a historic fire at a shirt factory. Pinsky’s “Shirt,” sometimes presents a confusing
jumble of images and historical background that asks the reader to consider the
history of textiles along with the physical shirt itself.
The poem asks the reader to look at items that are
commonly taken for granted not just as objects, but as the product of material,
lives, work, history, and design. Reviewer
Olivia Kay feels that Pinsky’s writing “shows that simple objects have the
ability to generate a wide array of thoughts.” (Kay) In asking the reader to think about a common
item, “Shirt” teaches the reader to look closely at other seemingly simple
things in life for the meanings that might not be so readily apparent. By the end of the poem, the simple garment,
the shirt, is an integral part of all the hands that created it. (Bates)
The poem “Shirt” is a poem narrated by the poet as he
reflects upon his wearing of a shirt. He
lets the reader know that he is the narrator by his use of images of the shirt
“This armpiece with its overseam to the band/Of cuff I button at my wrist.”
(Lines 5-6) though he frequently switches back and forth from the present
wearing of the shirt to the history of the shirt and the workers the produced
it. Because of this constant switching from the physical shirt to the scene of
its production and back again, (Gilbert),
the poem is not in strictly chronological order.
The poem is written as a series of sixteen sections of
three lines each, in which Pinsky takes the reader from the sweatshop where his
clothing is made to the physical shirt, bringing the language of manufacture
and machinery to the reader and adding the history of workers that have made
shirts in the past. (Magill's Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition) Pinsky said that while writing, he became
“hypnotized…by the sounds of the consonants in the language for the parts of
those handsome old machines: the
treadle, the needle …the bobbin.” (Brodeur) Pinsky uses that
rhythm throughout the poem, albeit slowing it down for thoughtful images, or
speeding it up a bit in the thick of the tension of the poem.
The poem’s lines do not rhyme, yet the work employs
rhythmic elements in the sentences.
Pinsky’s sentences are sometimes as short as two words, or sometimes as
long as six or more lines. One of two
short sentences found in the poem is “The code.” (Line 9) These two words break the rhythm of the work
and slow the reader’s progress in the poem. Immediately after this break, the
poem returns to a longer rhythm, though the author creates tension as he
discusses the scene observed by a witness across the street from the Triangle
Factory fire. After the fire, further tension
is created in a discussion of the workers that only escaped the fire through
being dropped or jumping from the building to certain death. The tension in the poem resolves only when
Pinsky takes the reader back to the fabric, the mills, the machinery and those
that labored to get the fabric to the factory, regaining the fluidity and
rhythm of the earlier part of the work.
Even the inspector that made sure that Pinsky’s shirt was correct appears
in the work, returning the reader to the garment once again, and causing the
reader to reflect another time upon the physical attributes as well as the
labor that went into making the “Shirt”.
The other two word sentence is “The Shirt” from the very last line of
the poem. This effectively ends the
rhythm, and forms closure to the poem.
Pinsky uses repetition as an effective tool in “The
Shirt”. He repeats details of the
construction and fabric of the shirt multiple times in the poem. When he brings the reader back to the details
of the physical shirt each time, he changes his emphasis somewhat, visiting
different aspects. In this way, his imagery
is used to focus the reader’s attention back on the shirt, though the images
are at least slightly different each time he returns. This imagery gives the reader more
appreciation for the design decisions and physical work that went into making
the shirt that the reader might never have thought about before. The fabric,
the pieces, the construction, where the fabric came from, and the work necessary
to produce it all become part of the finished product. The shirt also becomes inseparable from the
conditions under which sweat shop textile workers toil and sometimes die to
make cheap manufactured goods like the shirt.
The poem reminds readers of the importance of appreciating the history
and work that go into each item used in daily life, and in this way, to not
take anything in life for granted.
In the first section of the poem, Pinsky uses “isolated
noun phrases” (Gilbert)
to draw the attention of the reader to the various pieces of cut fabric that
are sewn together to form the physical shirt. “The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped
seams,/The nearly invisible stitches along the collar” (Lines 1-2) (Gardner, Lawn and Ridl) These short phrases acquaint
the reader with the variously named pattern pieces of fabric and types of
sewing that have become the product that becomes the shirt. The many parts come together as a whole. Pinsky finishes the first section by telling
the reader that the shirt is not made locally, like many products. “Turned in a sweatshop by Koreans or
Malaysians” (Line 3) But as the reader
discovers in the next section, these workers are no different than workers
anywhere.
In the second section, Pinsky continues by humanizing the
workers in those other lands, pointing out that they take breaks, eat, and talk
about a variety of subjects while they work just as the reader might do in his
or her own job. “Gossiping over tea and
noodles on their break/Or talking money or politics while one fitted/This
armpiece with its overseam to the band” (Lines 3-6) This imagery transports the
reader to his or her own neighborhood, and life, pointing out that the foreign
sweatshop workers are no different than the person that wears the finished
shirt.
In section three, Pinsky brings the reader back to
wearing the shirt as he buttons it up. “Of cuff I button at my wrist.” (Line
7) He then quickly returns the reader to
the garment factory with images of machinery found there, but also inserts a quick
reference to the workers and their struggle for worker’s rights. “The presser,
the cutter,/The wringer, the mangle. The needle, the union,/The treadle, the
bobbin.” (Lines 8-9) His mention of “the
union” in the middle of the mechanical tools of the garment worker’s trade
gives the reader a moment of pause since it is imbedded in the middle of the
tools and machinery of line 8 and 9. He
does not separate “the union” from the other tools that the workers use in the
making of the shirt. The reader might
not have thought about this entry being an integral part of the history of the
garment, though Pinsky obviously wants the reader to consider it as such. Then comes the one short sentence that breaks
the rhythm, and with it, the reader’s fluid reading of the work. “The code. The
infamous blaze” concluding line nine initially puzzles the reader, especially
if the reader is not familiar with the historical information to come.
The reader will become immersed in the garment worker
industry’s worst disaster in section four.
“At the Triangle Factory in nineteen-eleven./One hundred and forty-six
died in the flames/On the ninth floor, no hydrants, no fire escapes—“ (Lines
10-12, section 4) The author writes this
section with an immediacy in his prose.
The speed of the poetic rhythm increases, as does the tension in this
section. The author seeks to educate the
reader about this historical event that shaped the way that workers in the US
were treated after the disaster. Pinsky
creates imagery that causes the reader to read on with urgency, expecting to
get more information about the fire.
Pinsky’s mention of the Triangle Fire again asks the
reader to think about the workers that created the shirt, inviting more
understanding of the hands of the human beings that made shirts in the past and
lost their lives while doing so. When
the 275 girls that worked at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company’s factory in New
York City began to collect their belongings to go home on Saturday, March 25,
1911, a fire started. Many workers
perished in the fire, as the materials needed to create the shirts fueled the
fire. The Triangle Factory was located
on the 9th floor of the Asch building in the garment district. (The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Trial: Building and Safety Laws) Workers found that
the only fire escape available to them collapsed under the weight of people on
them, and fire department ladders could not reach them on the 9th floor, the
streams of water could reach only the 7th floor. Some doors that led
to the stairwells were locked, and those that were unlocked opened inward, quickly
being forced closed by the rush of women trying to escape, again, in violation
of “the code” which required the doors to open outwardly and not be locked in
any way during business hours. (The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Trial: Building and
Safety Laws)
There were no hydrants in the factory, only 27 buckets of water to use to fight
the fire. These horrible conditions
forced many women to endure terrible deaths in the flames and smoke. When workers found that they could not
escape, some jumped out of the windows to death on the street a hundred feet
below as discussed by Pinsky in Sections 4-7. (Leap for Life, Leap of Death) As mentioned in the
poem in line 11, the death toll for the Triangle fire was 146 employees. The women were aged 13 to 23 years, the
average age was 19. (Leap for Life, Leap of Death)
“The code,” in line 9, refers to the New York City codes
that were violated and not as stringent as they should have been, leading to a
great loss of life during the Triangle Fire.
The New York Laws did not require the Asch building to have fire escapes
that led to the ground. Instead, they led to the second floor skylight which
could not hold the weight of people upon it.
Sprinklers were not required in New York City buildings at that time, and
fire drills were not required either.
The building was slightly short of the height that would require
non-wood material in it, so the wooden building had plenty of wooden fuel to
burn. The doors at this time were not unlocked while workers were in the building,
so the women could not get out on one end of the building. Nets used by the firemen were insufficient
for the weight of people falling or jumping from a high floor, so they ripped
and did not help the women. (The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Trial: Building and
Safety Laws) The owners of the business, Isaac Harris and
Max Blanck, were tried for manslaughter, but later acquitted as the safety
regulations in place at that time were deemed to be insufficient. (Leap for Life, Leap of Death) This disaster changed American labor unions
and labor laws, created stricter fire safety codes to protect laborers, and
created a clearer set of guidelines that employers must follow to protect the
safety of their workers. (Markowitz and Rosner)
In section five, though the reader thinks he or she has
learned a bit about the Triangle fire, Pinsky extends the tension by telling the
reader that “The witness in a building across the street” (line 13) saw the
tragedy and must have more information.
Pinsky’s prose creates one very large sentence that flows quickly across
sections four to six, speeding up the reader’s eye while propelling the reader
to more information about the tragedy. “Who watched how a young man helped a
girl to step/Up to the windowsill, then held her out” (Lines 14-15) Pinsky has created a powerful image of a man
helping the girls out of the window onto the ledge, holding them out, and then
dropping them to their death, presumably a less painful death than being burned
alive. United Press reporter William
Shephard, an onlooker, said at the time “…thud—dead. Sixty-two thud---deads. I call them that because the sound and the
thought of death came to me each time, at the same instant.” (Leap for Life, Leap of Death) And so it is with Pinsky’s images in the poem,
each figure in the poem becomes real, and conjures the thought of death in the
commission of making a simple shirt.
Section six continues the horror as the male “helper”
continues to help the young girls to their possibly quicker and less painful
deaths. The man held each girl “Away
from the masonry wall and let her drop.”
Pinsky has inserted a period here in line 16, to slow the reader down in
order to think about the reality that the images create. The next line, line 17, creates a short
sentence to again slow the reader down: “And then another.” This continues to
confront the reader with the enormity of the situation, as if there were many
women lining up to make the jump to avoid dying in the flames. Continuing with line 17 “As if he were
helping them up” completes the line and quickly pushes the reader to line 18 where
Pinsky again reminds that though the image of the male helping the women looked
normal at that moment in time, that the man was actually helping the women go
to their certain death. “To enter a streetcar, and not eternity.” (Line 18 This
line brings the reader to the end of the section, completing the image with a
period to again break the rhythm. Pinsky
also creates a transition that propels the reader into the next section to find
out more about the people he has introduced the reader to.
Section seven continues the image of the man on the
window ledge, showing the emotion of the event: “A third before he dropped her
put her arms/Around his neck and kissed him. Then he held” (Lines 19-20) The reader can easily imagine the third woman
he helped off the ledge being so caught up in emotions of fear and gratitude
for his help, and knowing that she was soon to die, she kissed the man. The man would not have wanted to prolong the
girl’s fear by postponing what he was to do, so he helped her to her death as
well: “Her into space, and dropped her.” (Line 21) Completing the section, “Almost at once” (Line
21) brings the reader back to the image and the tension of wondering of what
will happen next, causing the reader to look for a conclusion in the next
section.
“He stepped up to the sill himself, his jacket flared” in
section eight, line 22, makes readers hold their breath as the male helper steps
up onto the window ledge, bringing the man to where the girls were just moments
before. The reader thinks “Oh no!” and
though he or she knows what must happen next, the reader hopes that indeed the
man will not jump. Pinsky cleverly
crafts the image of the man prior to this point so that the reader does not
know quite what to think of the man’s actions.
By putting the male helper on the window ledge, the reader is confused,
waiting impatiently for a resolution as to exactly why he is there. The end of line 22, and lines 23 and 24
answer quickly with an unforgettable image: “his jacket flared/And fluttered up
from his shirt as he came down,/Air filling up the legs of his gray trousers—“ Readers can imagine his clothing flying up
due to the air rushing by as the man fell to his death with the girls. The reader feels sad and let down by the
deaths of the man and the girls, yet Pinsky is not finished thinking about the “shirt”
yet.
Section 9 begins with a reference to another poet and
poem: “Like Hart Crane's Bedlamite, ‘shrill shirt ballooning.’” (Line 25) The word “bedlamite” in Hart Crane’s poem “To
Brooklyn Bridge” refers to an insane person, an lunatic, a madman, (Wordnik) like the man that would jump to his death
with the women he helped. His “shrill
shirt ballooning” of line 25 is a direct quote from “To Brooklyn Bridge” by
Crane in which the image of another person falling is made ”A bedlamite speeds
to thy parapets,/Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning,/A jest falls
from the speechless caravan.” (Lines 18-21, “To Brooklyn Bridge”) (Crane) The male helper in Pinsky’s poem, is the
person throwing himself off Crane’s Brooklyn bridge, insane with the tension of
the moment as he jumps off the building and to his death on the street
below. As the man is propelled downward,
the wind makes his shirt balloon up, bringing the reader back from the man falling
to the street to the shirt itself again. Pinsky said in an interview, that he
had read the account of the young man helping the young women and then jumping
himself in Irving Howe’s book The
Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, adding that the account was likely fake and in
the realm of “what might have been.” (Brodeur) Now Pinsky writes; “Wonderful
how the pattern matches perfectly/Across the placket and over the twin
bar-tacked” (Lines 26-27) These lines not only direct attention back to the
fabric and construction of the shirt, but also momentarily cause the reader
confusion as he or she wonders how to reconcile interest in the garment with
the horrors of the man falling to his death.
The tension eases as the poet moves readers back to the garment itself
again, with the prose leading easily into more attributes of the shirt in the
next section.
Finishing in section ten what began in the last line of
section nine, the “twin bar-tacked/Corners of both pockets” (lines 27 and 28) the
precision involved in the construction of the corners of the pockets of the
shirts reminds the poet of the strict rules relating to the rhyme of some
poetry or of a chord found in music. “like a strict rhyme/Or a major chord.” (Lines
28-29) While still painting an image with words of the perfection and
regimentation required with the construction of the pocket tacking of the
shirt, Pinsky runs images from one line into the next to speed up the rhythm. He takes the reader then into the types of
fabrics that shirts might be made from; ”Prints, plaids, checks,/Houndstooth,
Tattersall, Madras. The clan tartans” (Lines 29-30) inviting the reader to
imagine various garments that might be made from the many different fabrics
available. This section is all about
pattern. The lines read quickly, easily,
and rhythmically. They blend nicely into the next section which
then changes direction and feel.
While readers are pondering the “clan tartans” in the
last line of section ten, Pinsky transitions into section eleven in which
readers learn that those tartans were “Invented by mill-owners inspired by the
hoax of Ossian,/” In this image, the mill
owners that created fabrics that were not really clan tartans are compared to
the literary hoax of Ossian. According to the article “Top 10 literary hoaxes”
which was published in the U.K., in the 1760s poet James Macpherson supposedly
discovered fragments of a third-century epic by a poet named Ossian. Macpherson said that he had “translated”
these works from the Scottish Gaelic, and the works made their way around the
literary world of that time which was very much in the midst of a “primitivism
craze.” (Guardian News and Media, Limited) The Hoax was created because people yearned
for things more primitive, older, and historical. Similar
to the Hoax of Ossian, mill-owners were able to capitalize upon consumers’
desire for things historic and ancient, inventing supposedly historic clan
tartans to sell to the unsuspecting public.
In the next line of section eleven, “To control their
savage Scottish workers, tamed/By a fabricated heraldry: MacGregor,”(Line 33)
refers to the Scottish workers that manufacture Macgregor Tartan cloth,
encouraged to produce the clan fabric with pride for the MacGregors clan though
the pattern and the cloth they made were likely part of the false inventions as the hoax of Ossian. The MacGregors
clan was known as ferocious and war-like, living by the sword throughout the
1800s, (A History of Macgregor Tartan) so this clan name
would be an enticing one to consumers. Amazingly, Pinsky wrote this line with
knowledge that “Highland Scots being considered as sub human by the English who
tried to tame them as factory workers.” (Brodeur)
A parallel can be drawn to the Triangle workers who were considered so
untrustworthy that they were locked into the factory to avoid their pilfering a
shirt.
In section twelve of Pinsky’s poem, the mill owners used
the not only the name of MacGregor to identify the Tartan they would invent,
but also the historic Scottish clan names of “Bailey and MacMartin.” (Line 34
in section 12) Owing to the public’s
fascination with things historic and ancient, the mill-owners again felt that
the fabric would sell if named something that sounded historic, though it
actually was not. The rest of line 34
brings the reader to a new subject: the kilt.
“The kilt, devised for workers” (Line 34) The kilt, according to Pinsky,
was another myth that had been attributed to ancient history, but was later
debunked. (Brodeur) The majority of Scots regarded the kilt as a
barbarous form of dress, calling the few Highlanders that wore the kilts as
“redshanks” to indicate that their legs must have been red with cold. Though never the “national dress,” a few
Scots did wear the garment and it gained popularity, so it became associated
with Scottish dress “to wear among the dusty clattering looms.” (remainder of
Line 35) .
Again returning the reader to reality, though with more
of the history of the shirt mingled in; “to wear among the dusty clattering
looms” of Line 35 brings us back to the textile mills, where workers produced
the cloth on looms after the thread was produced from raw fiber. “Weavers,
carders, spinners. The loader,” (Line 36) This line paints images of the
workers that bring the fiber into the factory, loading it into machines that
will card or arrange the fiber to be spun into thread, spinning the thread, and
then weaving the thread into the cloth that will become the shirt. Pinsky wants to take the reader even further
back in the process of making cloth which he does so in the next section.
Section thirteen presents images of the people that
brought the fiber to the weavers, carders, and spinners of line 36, as well as
the sewers in the shirt factory. “The
docker, the navvy. The planter, the picker, the sorter” in line 37 lists for
the reader in noun phrase form, some of the people that had to work to produce and
transport the fiber to that the mill would then spin into thread and weave into
cloth. “The Navvy” in line 37 refers to
an unskilled worker, the word comes from that of a laborer on railroads or
shipping, earlier, one that worked in navigation, usually building navigation
canals, thus “navy/navvy” or navigation.
(Navvy, Definition)
These workers brought the cotton in for the textile worker, in what is
known as a sweatshop due to the heat and generally poor conditions.
“Sweating at her machine in a litter of cotton” (Line 38)
returns the reader to the image of the worker sweating while working, with the
refuse of the machine and manufacture all around her. The next line ties this worker to the image
of another worker that made her job possible:
“As slaves in calico headrags sweated in fields:” (Line 39) While references to the Triangle fire stir
the reader to appreciate the tragedy of lives lost in the history of producing
the shirt, these two lines tie two images of history together in just a brief
moment, causing the reader to ponder the conditions of the slave as connected
to that of the sweatshop worker. The
shirt might not be a product of slave labor in the present day, but those
sweatshop workers of far off lands work just as hard and under as difficult
conditions as their historical counterparts.
(Gilbert) Pinsky draws attention to the injustices in
the textile industry in section thirteen, which he continues in the next
section.
“George Herbert, your descendant is a Black/Lady in South
Carolina, her name is Irma” in Section fourteen, lines 40-41 refers to Welsh
poet George Herbert that was educated in England in the 1600s. Herbert preached, wrote poetry, was a public
orator, and is considered one of the great metaphysical poets of all time. (From the Academy of American Poets) Herbert wrote a poem titled “The Collar” as a
possible point of entry into Pinsky’s poem, (Gilbert)
but it might also be possible, given immigration and integration that Herbert
(or any person) could have a descendant that was a black woman from South
Carolina. Pinsky again makes the shirt,
down to the women that inspected it, no different, and perhaps related to, any
person. “And she inspected my shirt. Its
color and fit” (Line 42) The reader again faces how integrated everything and
everyone really is. Even Herbert, or the black woman Irma, that inspected
Pinsky’s shirt is perhaps part of the large extended heritage of the wearer of
the shirt. Again, the garment, the
reader, and the people involved in producing the garment have been drawn
together.
Section fifteen moves the reader from the people that
made and inspected the shirt to the physical shirt itself by sharing the
experience between the inspector and the wearer: “And feel and its clean smell have satisfied/both
her and me.” (Line 43 and a portion of line 44)
The imagery of the “feel and clean smell” has further enhanced the
reality of the actual shirt using more senses than Pinsky used thus far in the
poem. Additionally it continues to meld
the inspector as part of the textile industry, with the wearer, and even with
the reader, drawing the reader’s attention to the connection that each
participant has with the finished product.
The simple shirt that had been taken for granted before reading and
pondering the poem is now more appreciated by the reader.
“We have culled its cost and quality/Down to the buttons
of simulated bone,” (Remainder of line 44, line 45) finishes out the fifteenth
section by switching now to the mill or factory owner’s voice. The owner has culled, by definition, reduced
or removed some of the shirts, eliminating those that were not desirable for
whatever reason. (Definition of Culled) In this line,
culling refers to the negative action of reducing or removing some of the
shirts’ “cost and quality”, making the shirts a cheaper and less desirable
shadow of what it was in the past. In finishing
up the image on the next line “Down to the buttons of simulated bone” (Line 45)
Pinsky has further alluded to the reduction of cost and quality by pointing out
that the buttons now are no longer made of bone as they once were, but are now
“simulated”, most likely with plastic or some other cheaply produced material. In these images the reader realizes that the
garment is more cheaply made all the way around, from materials, to labor, even
to the buttons sewn onto it. The image
of cheaply made buttons forms a smooth transition into another repetitive noun
string in the last section, section sixteen.
“The buttonholes, the sizing, the facing, the characters”
(Line 46) again brings attention back to the garment that the poet wears. This noun string puts another list of items
that are pertinent to the shirt into images for the mind of the reader. “Printed in black on neckband and tail. “
(Line 47, first portion) causes the reader to pause for a moment, remembering
perhaps his or her own shirt, and looking for the printing that might or might
not be in both locations just as Pinsky has noted. This line slows the reading down and gets the
reader ready for the last string of images as the work draws to a close. “The
shape,/The label, the labor, the color, the shade. The shirt.” (Remainder of
line 47, and Line 48) These words
deliver a noun phrase string that incorporates an image of each portion of the
components of the shirt. Again, Pinsky
has included physical and historical images, reinforcing to the reader that the
poet feels that the labor and the history of the item are important and should
not be taken for granted or forgotten when looking at any common, every-day
item such as a “Shirt”.
Works Cited
A History of Macgregor Tartan. n.d. 4 September 2012.
.
Bates, Robin. The Triangle Fire and the Face of
Labor. 24 March 2011. 4 September 2012.
.
Brodeur, Brian. How a Poem Happens: Robert Pinsky.
12 December 2010. 4 September 2012.
.
Crane, Hart. "To Brooklyn Bridge." Weber,
Brom, ed. The Complete Poems and Selected Letters and Prose of Hart Crane.
Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1966. Print. 4 September 2012.
.
"Definition of Culled." 2011. Mirriam-Webster
Dictionary. 8 September 2012.
.
From the Academy of American Poets. 2012. 6 September 2012.
.
Gardner, Janet E, et al., Literature: A Portable
Anthology. Third Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2013. Print.
Gilbert, Roger. "On "Shirt"."
2000. Modern American Poetry. 3 September 2012.
.
Guardian News and Media, Limited. Top 10 literary
hoaxes. 15 November 2001. 4 September 2012.
.
Kay, Olivia. Poetry analysis: "Shirt",
by Robert Pinsky. 28 February 2012. 2012. 3 September 2012. .
Leap for Life, Leap of Death. n.d. 3 September 2012.
.
Magill's Survey of American Literature, Revised
Edition. 2012. 3 September 2012.
.
Markowitz, G and D. Rosner. "From the Triangle
Fire to the BP Explosion: A Short History of the Century-Long Movement for
Safety and Health." New Labor Forum (Murphy Institute) 20.1
(2010): 26-32. 8 September 2012. .
"Navvy, Definition." 2009. World English
Dictionary through Dictionary.com. Web Document. 6 September 2012.
.
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire Trial: Building and
Safety Laws. New York Building Codes Relating to the Triangle Shirtwaist
Fire Disaster. n.d. 3 September 2012.
.
Wordnik. Bedlamite, Definititions. n.d. 4
September 2012.
.
When a friend on Facebook loses a spouse, pet, family
member, or otherwise encounters a downturn of one kind of another, I watch the repetitive
posts of “I’ll pray for you” being put up on the friend’s page. So what does “I’ll pray for you” really
mean? Are you praying because you have
no intention of doing anything else but doing exactly what you’d been doing
before, except that you typed “I’ll pray for you” on the person’s comment line?
Is “I’ll pray for you” the new way of saying that you care but that you’re not
going to, for whatever reason, get off your butt and do anything real to show
your condolences or help the family in their time of need?
