I’ll Get Right On It
Poems on Working Life in the Climate Crisis
Poetry by and for working people making a living under conditions of climate disaster.
About the book
The deepening climate crisis is making all kinds of work harder, more dangerous and more unpredictable — or if it hasn’t yet, it will soon enough. And all kinds of workers have something to say about it. I’ll Get Right On It is a poetry anthology about making a living and carrying on despite smoky air, fires, climate grief, species loss and increased precarity. Contributors include Indigenous, migrant, racialized, low-income, queer, disabled and unpaid labourers who do all kinds of work, including climate-related work, extractive work, migrant work, gig work, care and service work and traditional work.
This anthology builds on the rich traditions of working-class literature, work poetry and social poetics. These poems are both a way to pay attention to the politics of everyday life and a workshop for building solidarity among working people already surviving and adapting to a climate emergency. They surface the commonplace, powerful feelings of cynicism, helplessness, empathy, responsibility, resilience and hope that are needed in the struggle for a liveable future. Connecting the dots between labour and environment, this anthology invites us to think and feel through the many ways climate change transforms our working lives.
What people are saying
Madhur Anand, Governor General’s Literary Award-winning writer and Director of the Global Ecological Change and Sustainability Laboratory, University of Guelph“An essential contribution to climate change literature, this book advances climate justice with voices not typically brought to the table. The urgency articulated in these itinerant voices is impossible to unhear, and, I hope, impossible to ignore.”
Jill MacIntyre, 350 Canada national organizer“A moving, richly diverse collection that connects the dots between the climate crisis and our labour conditions. This collection doesn’t shy away from reflecting the twin realities of dread and sorrow that come with working in a perpetual state of crisis. But it also moves us to process this collective climate grief through strengthening our bonds of solidarity. A powerful read for all of us trying to live, work, and resist during the polycrisis!”
Brigette DePape, Climate Planner at Narratives and author of Sun Compass“This collection sings through smoke, holding grief and humour with tender precision. We’re welcomed as friends to witness the labour of living through climate crisis, where catharsis emerges from honest reflection, our DNA is found in trees, and hope dances peace into being.”
Authors
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