Author Description

The Big Job is filled with exclamations, high-spirited imperatives, and raucous hilarity in poems that are linguistically and formally adventurous without being coy and vague. All of these qualities make them highly unfashionable, but we would do well to read them and see what we're missing in so much contemporary poetry that works so hard to say so little. In "Manifesto #94," Edwards wrote the following lines, committing to political action: "Now is the time / to set the wind free in the house. / Now is the time / to unsheathe my tongue / and take the safety off my hand." Now is still the time. - Jonathan Andersen Where are we in history? What have we lost? What have we become? That's what Robert Edwards asks in this vast and decades-spanning book of lyrics and narratives and rants and homages-asks and sometimes answers, but never in a simple way. These are poems in love with, and deeply disillusioned by, America. Unapologetic, partisan, political, urgent, furious, "The Big Job" is also celebratory as it moves, in its own words, "among the sirens, in the American dark." The truth is, some books can't help but be hopeful, because they are so full of decency and real thinking. "Bring everything you have," writes Edwards. "We need it all//because it is ourselves we make." - Daisy Fried Part retrospective, part poetry manifesto, part call to action, behind Edwards' "Big Job" is a big idea: the need of working people to abolish the stranglehold rule of the rich and powerful and construct the foundations of a new egalitarian society. If Edwards' allegiance to the working class harkens back to such midwestern literary ancestors as Tom McGrath and Meridel Le Sueur, his rich imagery, surprising leaps and turns of language, and creation of a unique poetic voice are as accomplished as any poet writing today. The result of over forty years of writing, The Big Job is a triumph for Edwards, as well as for a growing movement of writers seeking to create socially conscious work on