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PIECE WORK   |  60 minutes

Adapted by Brenda P. Schleunes

Based on the work of North Carolina writer, Barbara Presnell, Piece Work  honors and celebrates the dignity of work and those who

do the work.   Even though Ms. Presnell's characters are connected to textiles, their

voices resonate with the ring of tobacco farmer, the factory worker, the nurse’s aid, the hotel maid and other Southerners. Specifically, these characters have lively conversations with themselves and each other about their work, the history and  traditions of their work, their family life and relationships and their values.  

Charlie, the first shift-foreman at the textile mill, is proud to say, “What I do means something in this world.”  Other workers— Tonisha, Sherry, Jimmy, Bill—could say so too but probably won’t.  In Piece Work, one of the strongest, most truthful books of poetry I have ever read, Barbara Presnell says it for them, to them, with them, in lines of pure and heartfelt respect.  Here are some of the words—courage, exhaustion, hope, despair, persistence, defiance—never spoken but always profoundly lived.  In this fine poet’s hands, they are more than words.

              --Former North Carolina     

               Poet Laureate, Fred Chapell