Mark Nowak and Worker Writers School: September 30, 2021

Tanya Hollis, of the Labor Archives and Research Center at SF State, welcomes the audience and introduces the event, noting parallels with historic groups archived by the LARC, including the California Labor School and San Francisco Waterfront Writers. She then introduces Mark Nowak, who relates a brief history of the Worker Writers School and its New York City-based writers workshop sponsored by Pen America. Nowak also remarks the anniversary of the death in 2014 of Chinese factory worker and poet Xu Lizhi, reading a passage from his own book, Social Poetics (Coffee House Press, 2020) on the suicide of Xu and other employees of Chinese corporation Foxconn. He then introduces, in turn, Worker Writers School poets Lorraine Garnett and Davidson Garrett, who each read their poems; then Kele Nkhereanye and Seth Goldman, who read their work. Before the last two poets, Nowak speaks of Hiroaki Sato, scholar of the haiku form and prolific translator from Japanese, who visited the Worker Writers School, and of his effect on their reading practice, then introduces Alando McIntyre and Christine Yvette Lewis. Each of the poets reads from their contributions to the anthology, with some adding an additional haiku or two, and some speaking to their history with the school, with Lewis, to contextualize her poems, telling of her own serious bout with COVID-19.

Following the poets all reading, emcee Tanya Hollis and Worker Writers School director Mark Nowak, and all six poets (Lorraine Garnett, Davidson Garrett, Kele Nkhereanye, Seth Goldman, Alando McIntyre, and Christine Yvette Lewis) return. They talk about their experience as workers in New York City over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, and as writers engaged in the writing workshops facilitated by Nowak. In response to a question from the audience, the poets relate their stories of how they became involved with the Worker Writers School, and speak to the importance of worker solidarity and collective engagement, in worker organizing as well as writing activities, and to Nowak's work as facilitator of the group.