The Summer 2024 Blue Collar Review opens with commentary regarding the upcoming election, the state of politics as they impact our daily lives, and the need for individuals to take an active role: “[. . . ] we must work to best effect the system we have in our own defense while building the next system beneath it.

“This requires breaking with official narratives, building militant working class consciousness, cooperative businesses and communities, understanding that, as with our symbiotic biosphere, every thing is connected. We are connected to and interdependent on each other and on all Earth’s myriad life forms. An understanding of this truth is vital in the shaping of a free and livable future. [. . . ] This journal serves not only to connect us but as needed outreach to our class brothers and sisters.”

Contributors to this issue include Mitch Valente, Cathy Porter, Emma Weiss, Roy N. Mason, Jen Dunford-Roskos, Tom Gengler, Marc Jannsen, Matthew J. Spireng, normal, Shirley Adelman, Cathal Whelan, Jonathan Andersen, Mary Franke, Katherine L. Gordon, Chris Butters, and many more. Sample works from the newest issue can be read on the publication’s website.

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The Blue Collar Review: Journal of Progressive Working Class Literature Spring 2024 issue opens with these words from the editor’s note, “This Spring is marked by escalating tensions'” to which much of the work included bear witness. The editors conclude, “change must come from the bottom, from the working, exploited and oppressed – from us. Promoting and presenting examples of the consciousness of class connection necessary for that change remains our primary goal. We continue to struggle against the odds of increasing expenses and censorship pressures to get your words out. Your continuing support and unique writing keep this effort alive and we are grateful.” Sample works are available on the publication’s website.

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The Winter 2023-24 issue of Blue Collar Review is a collection of poems, short stories, literary reviews, and illustrations that “speaks to the times,” the editors write. “It speaks of losses, personal and financial. Poets here rail at the utter corruption of empire and of those of us sacrificed to pad the pockets of the Pentagon and profiteers. There are poems of medical dread, of the difficulties of becoming old, ill and cast aside. There are poems on homelessness, a story on human trafficking and poems on the proliferation of guns and violence in our own country as well as on our export of them around the world. [ . . . ] What this underscores is the desperate need for systemic change — for revolution. That requires building a critical mass which includes all of us.”

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Blue Collar Review editor’s note opens the Fall 2023 publication: “This issue emerges in maddening times. As I write this, the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians, triggered by a brutal uprising of oppressed desperation, continues in Gaza as well as in the occupied West Bank with avid support and weapons supplied by our country’s leaders. [. . . ]

“Some poems in this issue struggle with whether our protests and resistance even matter in the face of overwhelming odds and the stubbornly deaf power of the corrupt monstrosity of our seemingly insane ruling class. They affirm, based in our own working class history, as well as continuing labor victories, that it absolutely does matter; that we lose when we give in to hopelessness, cynicism or the cultivated division that isolates and disempowers us. Given the impending climate catastrophe, the danger of growing wars and of nuclear war that threatens our existence, we, like Palestinians, have no choice but to struggle for our own survival against the same entrenched, corporate militarized power. [. . . ]

“We remain grateful for your support, for the strong words and poetry sent and to be able to continue publishing in spite of rising prices and postal rates. As a poem by Cathy Porter notes, ‘Poetry can’t solve a damn thing / but readers can / And we must.'”

Blue Collar Review: Journal of Progressive Working Class Literature Spring 2023 has much to offer readers looking for both solace and inspiration during these tumultuous times. The editors introduce poems by Lyle Estill, John Zedolik, and Ada Negri, as translated by Thomas Feeney, which “describe workplace injuries” as well as “poems of resistance to the workplace threats of harm and to the unlivable pay and limits placed by government assistance that impact our health, our lives beyond the workplace, and our chances of being injured on the job [. . . ] a poem by Cathy Porter reminds us many are forced to choose between food and medicines, [. . . ] and Mary Franke’s poem ‘May Day 2023’ informs us, child labor is back.” Blue Collar Review offers several sample poems on its website, including “The Current Political Scene” by Marge Piercy. Blue Collar Review is a quarterly journal of poetry and prose published by Partisan Press with the mission “to expand and promote a progressive working class vision of culture that inspires us and that moves us forward as a class.”

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The Winter 2022-23 issue of Blue Collar Review: Journal of Progressive Working Class Literature opens with the editorial comments, “This winter has seen our working class and our earth under continuous attack. The crimes of commerce and the insane barbarity of war cannot be disconnected.” The poems featured within its pages speak to “the bleak realities of life for our laboring, and post-laboring class” and close with “a post-pandemic wake-up call for many of us who have been stunned into depressed isolation by the pandemic, by the growing threat of impending nuclear annihilation, and by an unfolding climate catastrophe.” The Blue Collar Review website features poems from the issue by Ed Block, Dan Sicoli, TK O’Rourke, Stewart Acuff, Livio Farallo, Joel Savishinski, Roibeárd, and Bill Ayres. Cover art: Uvalde by Roberto Marquez.

A “Journal of Progressive Working Class Literature,” Blue Collar Review Editors never shy away from work that addresses some of our society’s most pressing concerns. This newest issue is no exception: “The contributors in this summer issue understand the growing threat of competitive corporate dominance, of fascism and war, especially in this time of climate emergency. Close to 80% of working people support universal healthcare, climate action, voting rights, and women’s reproductive freedom. These priorities are subverted by corporate media and politicians funded by big business interests whose priorities are legislated at the expense of our freedoms, our health, and the future of life on earth. Democracy, unlike fascism, is defined by authentic public participation. Getting there from here is a continuing struggle upon which our rights and existence depend. [. . . ] This issue [of Blue Collar Review] completes twenty-five years of publication. We are grateful to be able to continue doing our part to demonstrate and encourage a mindset of social and class solidarity necessary to our struggle for a livable world and for authentic democracy.” Sample works from the most recent issues can be read online at Blue Collar Review.

The Blue Collar Review is a quarterly journal of poetry and prose published by Partisan Press with the mission “to expand and promote a progressive working class vision of culture that inspires us and that moves us forward as a class.”

The editors comment: “Poems in this collection focus on poverty, labor struggles, and on the devaluing of, and impact on, children in our corrupt corporate oligarchy. Children suffer inordinately from the criminal irresponsibility of political opportunism and arrogant class disregard. . . Violence driven by bigotry is a continuing foundational American reality. . . The scapegoating and targeting of people based on perceived differences is meant to divide us, diverting the focus of our frustration and rage from those who perpetrate vicious, unrelenting injustice upon us to our class brothers and sisters. Added to the targets of hate are Trans and gender non-binary people. As a class, our struggle demands transcending such prejudices and creating our own justice rooted in our common issues and interests.”

These poems, then, “exists to make us more aware of the commonality or our shared class experience and to strengthen the social solidarity we need to have a voice and to create authentic democracy.” Readers can find sample poems on the Blue Collar Review website along with submission and subscription information.