So what do you do?
by Max Kerwien
Google “big toe pain.” See where that takes you. Perhaps to a long chain of YouTube videos of bunion removal. I have seen how rail workers fare in Norfolk’s care, and there are more bunions than paid sick time. I was the Leave Management Officer. To deny their requests for time off were little deaths. Now I coordinate projects for health insurance. I quit making guns to manufacture bullets. I remember a meeting with the Product team last month about making the Claims Denial UI more accessible for the hearing impaired. My VP Kevin made this excellent point about captioning where we can and getting that tech from Brazilian contractors, limiting the financial responsibility of providing benefits for US FT employees. It made me think, what am I currently doing to increase Western productivity in a time of excellent suffering? But the paycheck. My manager and I talk about climbing a ladder. I keep a loose grip and hope I fall. Anyways, I’m rambling. So your profile said you’re from Colorado?
Max Kerwien is a disabled poet and comedian. In 2016, he won the Joan Grayston Poetry Prize. His work has been published in the decomp Journal, the DASH Literary Journal, and more. Most recently, his chapbook “Whirs, Snaps, Clicks, and Clacks” was published by Bottlecap Press.
See what happens when you click below.
What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “So what do you do?”? “So what do you do” is a poem about a date, and a job I had. A few years ago I worked for a software company that provided contractor leave management services to big corporations. They hired us basically to review their employee’s requests for medical leave and such. A ton of bureaucracy, corporate interest, and greed made the job feel dystopian. I felt very self-conscious as a 28 year old sending a letter to a railroad mechanic that he couldn’t take time off from his debilitating injury because he didn’t fill out his paperwork properly. When on a date, the question “what do you do?” inevitably comes up, and I thought, what if the answer to that question is the burden of being a cog in our broken system? The poem is the answer to that question.
Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.
Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.
Matter Press is now offering private flash fiction workshops and critiques of flash fiction collections here.
Submissions
Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again March 15, 2025. Submit here.
Upcoming
01/13 • Edward Thomas-Herrera
01/20 • Zero Laforga
01/27 • Jack Bedell
02/03 • TBD
02/10 • Gaurav Bhalla
02/17 • Callie Dean
02/24 • TBD