Friday, March 13, 2009

Homeworking poetry: Matt Harvey

Another little exclusive: tomorrow's Desktop Poetry section of The Guardian will carry this rather smashing poem by friend of Shedworking Matt Harvey who wrote the marvellous Where Earwigs Dare about shedworking.

On the tendency towards gender-stereotypical behaviour among home-workers


They rise together, woken by the kids.
She feeds, wipes, wraps and zips them in to school.
He turns his laptop on, and focuses.
She launders, shops, brings home formidable
stocks, stacks them, puts a pan on low, completes
a tax form, phones them up, is put on hold…
He types a line, deletes, types, re-deletes.
She stirs. Her mobile goes. Yvette’s been told
she’s obsolete, redundant. Oh, how awful!
She’s taken off hold. Yvette starts to cry.
The unwatched pan boils over. There’s the doorbell.
She pushes his door, taps to catch his eye.
He looks up crossly at third time of asking:
DON’T INTERRUPT ME WHEN I’M MONO-TASKING!

You can buy Matt's books of poetry from his site here. I'd particularly recommend The Hole in the Sum of My Parts.

1 comment:

  1. The poem says it all, thank you. I think I am at various times both of those personalities -- sometimes a mono-tasker and sometimes a multi-tasker. Being a woman is tons of fun!

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