{"id":1292,"date":"2008-07-02T15:50:06","date_gmt":"2008-07-02T15:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1292"},"modified":"2008-07-02T15:50:06","modified_gmt":"2008-07-02T15:50:06","slug":"agency-workers-by-pat-jourdan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/agency-workers-by-pat-jourdan\/","title":{"rendered":"Agency Workers by Pat Jourdan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Agency Workers<\/span>


We sit on New York-style chairs,<\/span>
stainless steel on cloudgrey carpet.<\/span>
Here in the heat and light<\/span>
is our morning's ration of luxury<\/span>
as the register fills up. Each name<\/span>
a strengthening of each, conspirators together,<\/span>
muffled from the cold.<\/span>
Another working day. We are processed<\/span>
away from our real selves<\/span>
and into this working-person-thing.<\/span>
There is no room for Elgar-like regrets;<\/span>
we snatch a new day's scandal from The Sun.<\/span>
Our driver arrives last, his own worries<\/span>
hidden in his nonchalance.<\/span>
Lizzie and Stella and Annie and Sue,<\/span>
Maureen and Jean and Joan and Dot,<\/span>
Carrie and Angie and Brenda and Cath,<\/span>
Denise and Mary and Sal and me<\/span>
hurtle along the country lanes<\/span>
to where the factory waits beyond the fields.<\/span>
Today's payment:<\/span>
one entire sunrise, spanning<\/span>
all the window of our racketing van.<\/span>


\u2022 Pat Jourdan's latest collection is The Cast Iron Shore<\/span> from Erbacce Press. Trained as an artist in Liverpool, she has spent many years in Ireland, which shows in her work.<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Agency WorkersWe sit on New York-style chairs,stainless steel on cloudgrey carpet.Here in the heat and lightis our morning's ration of luxuryas the register fills up. Each namea strengthening of each, conspirators together,muffled from the cold.Another working day. We are processedaway from our real selvesand into this working-person-thing.There is no room for Elgar-like regrets;we snatch a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}