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Bibliophiles Unanimous!: A Group Reading of the poem “FACTORY” by Antler 2/28/21

February 28, 2021 @ 3:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Dear Bibliophiles!

We’re going to have a Group Reading of the poem “FACTORY” by Antler, on Sunday, February 28th at 3 pm. Here’s the link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81054571039

This is an amazing poem! It can change the way you see and feel and understand our world. I first read an abridged version in the Winter 1979/80 Issue (No. 24) of the CoEvolution Quarterly. I got a copy of the complete poem from City Lights Books, which published it as a separate volume.

It’s a long poem. It’s progenitors include Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself,” the Chicago poems of Carl Sandburg, and Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.” I have abridged it for this event.

Here’s something brief about the poet from Wikipedia:

Antler (born Brad Burdick); 1946 in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, is an American poet who lives in Wisconsin.

Among other honors, Antler received the Whitman Prize from the Walt Whitman Association, given to the poet “whose contribution best reveals the continuing presence of Walt Whitman in American poetry,” in 1985. Antler also was awarded the Witter Bynner prize in 1987. Antler was the poet laureate of the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for 2002 and 2003. He is also an advocate for wilderness protection.

Here are just a few passages from the poem to entice you to join us on the 28th:

The machines waited for me.

Waited for me to be born and grow young,

For the totempoles of my personality to be carved….

This is the hall big as a football field….

Machines large as locomotives,

louder than loudest rockgroup explosions…

From my work alone 280,000 lids each day….

14 million cans each day

from a single factory!….

How can I apologize to primeval shorelines cluttered with beercans?

Should I say I needed the money?

….Should I say I’m a spy behind enemy lines….?

Should I say here’s a free pass

to the antique beercan collector’s convention?….

I should be paid for wondering if I’m only a defect

in the mass-production of zombies!….

How much do I get for watching the sunrise?

How much do I get for sleeping under the stars?

Before I said—“I will never cringe under the crack

of the slavedriver’s whip!”

Now my job is to murder the oceans!

Now my job is to poison the air!

Now my job is to chop down every tree!….

….I should be paid to say everyone’s job is enlightenment!

I should be paid to run naked through the sprinkler

the hottest day of summer!

I should be paid to lie in a canoe

and drift over the lake all day!….

All I have to do is stand here

and package factories as they come from the press—

Factories that make cans.

Factories that make the machines that make cans.

Factories that make the machines that make the machines

that make cans.

Factories that make factories….

Factories that make cuckoo-clock canaries.

Industries of canned laughter, canned applause,

canned music.

Telephone factories, television factories,

radio, stereo, tape recorder factories,

refrigerator, stove and toilet factories.

Telescope factories, microscope factories,

film, camera, movie screen factories,

jukebox, roulette wheel and slot machine factories.

Industries of nuts! Industries of bolts!

Industries of bulldozers, roadgraders, steamshovels,

cement mixers, steamrollers, jackhammers,

pile drivers and wrecking cranes!….

Working your way up to foreman in the insecticide factory!

Working your way up to employment manager in the squirtgun factory!

Working your way up to the top in the pay toilet factory!

Well, that should give you a feeling for the poem. There’s much much more!

DON’T MISS THIS!!!

peace & love

Johnny

Details

Date:: February 28, 2021
Time:: 3:00 pm - 6:00 pm