Poet M.L. Liebler and memoirist Ben Hamper bring their show to town

Poet M.L. Liebler editor of the 2011 Michigan Notable Book “Working Words” and  cult-writer Ben Hamper who wrote the book’s foreword will do a reading and discuss the new book 7 p.m., Tuesday, January 25 at Schuler Books & Music in the Eastwood Towne Center.

I discussed “Working Words” with Liebler last Friday while he was driving into Hollywood on Sunset Blvd. Liebler was in Los Angeles for an appearance with Moby Grape. Yes, THE Moby Grape. They sing and play, he sings and recites poetry. Here’s what we talked about:

M. L. Liebler told me he has a lot friends. Liebler who has taught English, Labor Studies and the art of the working class at Wayne State University for more than 30 years was not shy in calling upon them for a little something to include in “Working Words: Punching the Clock and Kicking out the Jams”, an anthology of poems, short fiction, memoirs and song lyrics which tell the story of the working class.

The first thing you notice about the book  is it’s heft, more than 450 pages, just right for the hands of a steelworker or Michael Moore who is one of the contributors. Moore, in a blurb for the book, called it  “inspiring” and said “The book is kind of a spark we need these days.”

Moore contributed “Horatio Alger Must Die” an excerpt from “Dude: Where’s My Country?” Moore is one of the scores of authors, poets and songwriters with Michigan ties who routinely pop up in the book, which Liebler says is nearly one-of-a-kind.

Liebler, who edited this impressive collection, said he was inspired by having to Xerox material for his students in a class in Labor Studies he teaches at Wayne State.

“There never was a collection like this and that gave me an idea to compile one.”

And what a collection he has compiled. There are poets (Amiri Baraka, Stewart Francke); filmmakers (Moore,); Pulitzer Prize Winners (Philip Levine) and novelists (Stephen Crane, Willa Cather).

“There wasn’t anyone I wanted who said no,” Liebler said. The dead folk didn’t have that chance.

“Everybody, surprisingly and willingly, participated in the process.”

And everybody would include the likes of Bob Dylan, and Detroiter’s Eminem and Jack White whose lyrics are included in the anthology.

“The guys who I thought would be the most difficult were the easiest.”

How easy? A friend put him touch with a key Dylan contact and, basically on the spot Liebler said, he was given permission to use anything he wanted.

The result is that three Dylan songs are included in the collection including “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.” Dylan appears with the lyrics of Detroiter’s Jack White (“The Big Three Killed My Baby”) and Eminem (“Lose Yourself”) along with one of the original working-class ballads, Woody Guthrie’s “1913 Massacre”.

There are also selections from the usual suspects such as Walt Whitman and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but they are accompanied with contributions from eminent American literary figures such as Emily Dickinson and Willa Cather and social activists the likes of Dorothy Day and Daniel Berrigan.

It seems natural that many of Liebler’s friends are from Michigan and paging through the collection the familiar names of David Marsh, Philip Levine, Jeff Vande Zande, Dudley Randall, Jim Ray Daniels, Lolita Hernandez, Anne Marie Oomen and Stewart Francke leap out.

Some contributors’ names tug at the cobwebs of memory and you find yourself asking where have I heard that name as you read Diane di Prima’s “Revolutionary Letter # 19” or Michael McClure’s “Beginning With a Line by di Prima.”

Both are survivors of the beats with bragging rights about their connections with Kerouac and Ginsburg.

Michigan State University Professor Diane Wakoski also holds that candle and contributed “The Butcher’s Apron” which begins “Red Stains on the Clean White Bib.”  Diane is shown at left.

The 2010 National Book Award Finalist Bonnie Jo Campbell contributed her short fiction piece “Selling Manure” and another Michigan finalist Thomas Lynch loaned Liebler “the Undertaking” and famed rock critic and former editor of Creem Magazine David Marsh writes of his recollections growing up in industrialized Pontiac Michigan in the excerpt from “Fortunate Son”.

Liebler says part of the inspiration for the book comes from his own Detroit area roots.

“I come out of the working class. My grandfather was in the 1937 Sitdown strike.

I guess you could say it’s in my DNA.”

Liebler contributes two of his own poems to the collection: “Making It Right” and in “On the Scrap” he writes:

“Just another Detroit man beaten

Down by the tortured years

Of Depression, World Wars”

And then Liebler tips his hat to Woody and Calumet in “On the Scrap” which ends with:

“And inspiration through their friend Big Annie whose

Courageous Spirit drifted skyward past

a lone child’s picket sign that read

“My papa’s striking for us”

In a several page introduction to the collection, Liebler explains how he chose the selections and offers this “It is my hope that readers will think about this rich history and experience the poems, songs and essays in this anthology.”

Although Liebler is quite humble about compiling this collection of “working words” it is not difficult to imagine the work he put into it.

He was even able to pull his friend Ben Hamper out of retirement to contribute a piece from the cult working-class book “Rivethead”, but also to write the spirited foreword.

In the forward Hamper writes: “I’ve always felt that work, unto itself, was only a noble concept in one of those absurd bromides that mothers are fond of reciting.”

Liebler has compiled a collection of writing on the world of work and workers that could not have come at a better time-it’s the kind of book that will get a “shoprats” motor’s running whether they made tacos or Chevies.

Liebler, Hamper and several other contributors to “Working Words” will be at Schuler Books & Music, Eastwood Towne Center, 7 p.m. Tuesday January 25.