Poems for the workers: The poetry of George Fish

While Max Alvarez was inside the Labor Notes conference this past April, attending panels and sharing space with intelligent, hard working organizers, Mel Buer was wandering the conference grounds outside, meeting folks and talking about the joy of being a member of the working class as they sat in the grass and ate their lunches and talked with friends, old and new. There’s something to be said about the people you meet when you’re sharing cigarettes outside a conference center-one such person was today’s guest, adorned in UFCW buttons and sharing his poetry with Mel while they smoked together on a bench near the conference. On this week’s episode of Working People, Mel sat down with labor poet and union grocer George Fish, a wonderful man full of stories about his life and work, his experiences growing up and ultimately leaving the Catholic Church, his politics-honed through decades of life experience-and his relationship to his writing and poetry.
Post-Production: Jules Taylor
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[@Noura-2-b1y]

I am your sister from Yemen, and by Allah I only spoke out of hunger and distress. My mother, my brothers, and I lessons and tears. We are in a situation that only God knows about. God is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs for those who broughtOh people, we are your sisters, by God 😭😭😭 We do not even find a loaf of bread inside the house that would satisfy you, oh nation of Muhammad. People are brothers. Oh God, make your righteous servants subservient to us. Oh God, make your righteous servants subservient to us. My appeal to every Muslim, oh Lord, if he sees this message, may He prolong his life, make him happy, and cover him. May God reward him. God is sufficient for me, and He is the best disposer of affairs. There is no power or strength except with God. Oh people, oh nation of Muhammad, oh people of goodness, oh people of mercy. We are your sisters and your children. By God, we do not even find a loaf of bread inside the house that would satisfy you. Oh nation of Muhammad, I only spoke out of extreme hunger and distress. My mother, sisters, and I are displaced from our homes because of the war. We are in a state that no one knows about except God. God is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs, against those who brought us to this state 💔💔 By God Almighty, I only wrote this appeal out of extreme poverty and poverty, oh people. I beg you by God Almighty, Lord of the Mighty Throne, that I do not have food at home. By God, my brothers and sisters have been sitting around for two days. Without food, by God our situation is very difficult, we are 4 people in the house and my father passed away and there is no one to support us and we live in a rented house and we cannot pay the rest of the rent. I am not lying to you nor deceiving you nor cheating you. I am a Yemeni girl displaced because of the war between me and my family over a rent dispute and the owner of the house. By God, my brother comes every day and humiliates us and talks about us and wants us to go out to the street because we are unable to pay him the rent. The neighbors saw us crying and talked to the neighbors again and gave us a deadline until the end of the week and we swore to God to let us out of the street now we are in arrears of 60 thousand Yemeni riyals for 3 months rent may God have mercy on us our country is suffering because of this war and we do not find our daily sustenance and we live my mother and sisters our father passed away may God have mercy on him and we do not have anyone in the world to come to us in these harsh circumstances my little sisters went out to the street and saw the neighbors eating and stood at their door giving them even a piece of bread and by God in whose hand is the heavens and the earth they closed the door and kicked them out and they came back crying dying of hunger no one has mercy on them and now the holiday has come back to me if no one of us helps us with a kilo of flour by God we will die of hunger brother I seek refuge in God and then in you and I want your help for the sake of God I ask you by God you love goodness and help me even if it is about the rent of the house send me a WhatsApp message on this number [phone] and ask for my card name and send it and do not delay may God compensate you with all good My little sisters, look at their situation and help us and save us before they throw us out into the street and humiliate us or my family and I die of hunger. We ask you by God, if you are able to help us, do not delay on us, and may God reward you with good.'~~_«%•&»_~~_~&:»'////;&&;&;&;;&🎉😢😢😢😢;&;&&&//&..,!~~~♡♡♡~~~♡~♡~•~•~•~•~♡~♡~♡~;l.i.i.i.i.i.l.|-.-....،،،،،..،......

[@Robert_McGarry_Poems]

The solitude of quiet eludes me. Sarrow pursues me. Screaming in my ears, a deafening silence that wrings out my soul. RINNNNNNNG... As it pours, boundless amounts of energy into the void of my mind. Surviving this... chaos... long enough to do it again and again and again.
Satisfied with just surviving... I think. But, I don't... think. That is the point. What point? $#¡/... stop doing that! Wanting answers to questions that are not worth asking. Ones far outside your pay range. Just refrain from thinking. Right... sleep. Yes, sleeping is nice. And yet even my dreams defy my lasting attempts to find silence. Fracture, isolation, fear, hyper reality with no ending...