Payday at the Triangle

by Ruth Daigon

ISBN:1-891298-10-0
Small Poetry Press
Select Poets Series

AVAILABLE FROM:

Ruth Daigon
86 Sandpiper Circle
Corte Madera, CA 94925

$9.00 saddlestitched, $11.00 perfect bound (prices include postage)

TILLIE OLSEN: "Ruth Daigon's poetry gives life to those who perished in the fire as no one has done before.....poignant and beautifully written account...makes it a MUST."

STUDS TERKEL: "Ruth Daigon;'s poetic remembrance...touched me as profoundly as any I've read in years. It brought forth feelings of anger and sorrow.....It is so contemporary.....a MUST... "

 Issue #23, June 2001
published by
Art in the Public Interest


Payday at the Triangle "Payday at the Triangle" is a stunning new book of poetry by Ruth Daigon, retelling the story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 that killed 146 people behind the locked factory doors. The book reproduces bits of newsprint and news photos of and following the disaster, giving tiny clues to the humanity of those who died and survived. Daigon uses these fractions of the past to create moving poems in the voices of the victims that contextualize the story in the labor and feminist struggles of the time. Poet Tillie Olsen calls the fire a pivotal event in America's movement toward social and political justice, and says, "This poignant and beautifully written account makes the 1911 disaster seems like yesterday's nightmare." From Small Poetry Press: 925-789-1411.

PoetryMagazine.com Review:

Payday at the Triangle by Ruth Daigon
Cover and Interior Book design by David Alpaugh
Book Review by Mary Barnet
Concord, CA: Small Poetry Press, Select Poets Series, Copyright © 2001,
39 pp., paperback $9.00(includes postage). ISBN: 1-891298-10-0

Ruth Daigon singer/editor/performance/poet's latest prize is the Greensboro National Poetry Prize 2000, Kimera's chapbook prize to be anthologized in hardcopy in February 2001. Her latest publications on the WEB are ForPoetry, Conspire, Poetry Repair Shop, Ste. 101, Kota Press, Writer's Quill.... and
in (hard copy) Heaven Bone, Maelstrom, Southern California anthology, A Room of One's Own... and a poetry collection "The Moon Inside" (Gravity/Newton's Baby Press, 2000) ...plus a selection of her poems entitled "The Greatest Hits of Ruth Daigon 1970-1990" is forthcoming from Pudding House as part of their Chapbook Series and a chapbook "Payday at the Triangle" has been in the works for awhile.

Well, "Payday at the Triangle" is here! "Payday at the Triangle" is both compelling and engaging. It recounts the story of the tragic 1911 Triangle shirtwaist factory fire and is starkly and very effectively illustrated with newspaper clippings and photos of the time. The smoke, flame and the terror of the 148 victims are palpable in Ruth Daigon's poems which tell the individual tales of persons involved in the terrible fire.

This is a work of import which recounts passionately and with skill one of the primary events leading to the beginning of workplace safety regulation in place in the US today. The poems bring to life from the point of view of these young women, their families and observers an event which electrified New York City, and the nation when it occurred. I recommend that you buy and read this book!

The author's poetry also appears at:

PAYDAY can be purchased through:

Ruth Daigon, 86 Sandpiper Circle, Corte Madera, CA 94925
$9.00 (includes postage)

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