"In plastic, a book-length poem cycle by the Northern Irish poet Matthew Rice, the time-stamp titles ensure that clock-watching is an experience readers share with the narrator and his fellow workers through their 12-hour factory night shift. Whether Rice is observing the enforced machine-order of the production line, evaluating his own thoughts about cinema, music and literature, or empathising with the other workers, each individual short poem is a cherished fragment of perception seeking a moment of freedom from the tyranny of its time-stamp."
"05.29 It was wee Gail's seventieth birthday last week and she has a special seat to sit on all shift and her hands are old at the task, old at working the tricks that come with having laboured in the same place for so long and she's making light work of sifting defective ring washers from those within tolerance and her bench could be a grand piano, her patch of floor a stage, and, in another life, it is."
Time-stamp titles make clock-watching central to a twelve-hour factory night shift. Workers share clock-watching and experience enforced machine-order, limited imagination, and internalized factory routine. Star-gazing on break is reduced to tobacco sparks and ways to navigate shift patterns, not to cosmic truth. A long-serving worker, Gail, uses practiced hands to sift defective ring washers, turning her bench into a stage and making light work of repetitive tasks. Individual perceptions appear as short, cherished fragments seeking moments of freedom from temporal tyranny. Socio-economic position frustrates both collective and individual potential.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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