Blues and Greens: A Produce Worker's Journal

by Alan Chong Lau

Book Overview

Alan Chong Lau's poetic memoir of his days as a produce worker in Seattle's Chinatown reveals a microcosm of grassroots, working-class Asian America--a world where customers, workers, and fruits and vegetables intersect in exchanges that crackle with energy and brim over with humor.

With the simple profundity of a Zen koan, the poems bear witness to people's humanity. Lau portrays in words and pictures a community in constant flux as it...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0824823230
• ISBN13: 9780824823238
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
• Length: 136 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Working Blues

This is a working person's book. Many of the poems have the feel of the poet writing notes on a small pad during brief breaks at work, imprinting observations about customers, workers, produce, clouds, items in the dumpster. The poems feel like a cross between Basho amd William Carlos Williams--the immediacy and sensitivity of haiku with the sharp eye of Dr. Williams. Lau further creates the working environment by intercutting announcements on the intercom. If you like the work poems of Philip Levine, you will like this book.