Mall is Lost
Holly Raymond, 2018
Mall Is Lost is the epic poem on our lives housed within the structures of retail economy. The reader is removed from time with constant anachronisms of language, imagery, and characters; creating a flattened chronology of capitalism from the late-Medieval town structures to the decaying spectacle of centralized consumerism.
This book is handmade in Milwaukee with a four-signature exposed-spine buttonhole stitch. The text is printed on 24 lb recycled paper. The cover is speckletone coverstock printed with the robot hand, hand folded and cut to size using tearing and razorblades. 56 pages.
Holly Raymond is a PhD candidate and writing instructor at Temple University. Their previous work has appeared in Bedfellows, Boneless/Skinless, The Volta, The Stillwater Reviews, Industrial Lunch, and elsewhere. Previous chapbooks include Figure Without Hammer, Deer Lay Traps, Muscle Milk! Goblin Gavotte with David W. Pritchard, and Sensible Soccer with Jonathan Schoenfelder. They stole a Vegeta action figure from a Suncoast Video in 1998 and their sins will never be washed clean.
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Under the Sea
Zoe Cohen, 2018
Under The Sea is a documentation of work at a Florida Keys tourist shop. It shows the blurring of the identity to commercial alienation. The local identity is faded to marketing as folklore figures are used to prop advertising. The retail worker is without identity in relation to the place: neither local nor visitor. Zoe Cohen uses this vacillating status to be both visitor and resident, revealing the often forgotten population of a ‘destination’ and the work needed to support ‘vacation.’
The book was made in Milwaukee with a hand-sewn pamphlet-stitch binding in a limited edition of 50 copies. The text is printed on 24 lb recycled paper. The cover is speckletone coverstock, printed by a laser printer and a robot arm with fine-tipped liner pens.
In chronological order, Zoe Cohen has sold: pizza, seashells, bedazzled jeans, theatre tickets, Christmas ornaments, French patisserie, and books. She currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin where she is pursuing a PhD. Email her at zoeedithcohen@gmail.com
Price: $8
Selected Poems of Xu Lizhi (1990-2014)
Xu Lizhi (translated by Friends of Nao), 2018
Xu Lizhi’s poems emerged amid the media coverage of workers at Chinese tech factories jumping to their deaths—a rash of tragedies whose cause was crystallized in the behemoth company Foxconn’s crass solution of erecting nets. Xu’s poetry gives a voice to workers so exhausted and dehumanized by the conditions of their labor and employment that, rather than continue, they chose to take their own lives. The poems show exhaustion, disappointment, and isolation; but instead of focusing solely on these internal struggles, they point a critical eye at the culture responsible. Xu’s voice is one that shows the struggle of shifting between a sense of disillusionment and one of hope.
Xu Lizhi grew up outside of Jieyang, Guangdong, the third son of farm workers. Xu moved to Shenzhen in 2011, in search of job opportunities unavailable in his rural village. To survive in the city he took work on the assembly line at Foxconn, but repeatedly attempted to find a job at a library or the Central Book Mall to follow his passion. During this time he published dozens of poems in the internal company newspaper, Foxconn People. Xu attempted to leave the factory, quitting his job and moving to to Suzhou, Jiangsu in February, 2014. After a few months, however, Xu returned to Shenzhen and on September 29, 2014 returned to work at Foxconn. The next day he took his own life by jumping from his factory dorm window.
Xu’s poems and his life at the factory have a particular resonance for those of us in Wisconsin. The unprecedented amount of corporate welfare and looming promise of environmental devastation that accompany Scott Walker’s deal with Foxconn are well-documented; as are residents’ fears of potential labor exploitation. Its all-too-easy to allow the reality of workers’ lives to be forgotten when reading about new developments and projected employment rates on devices made by their hands, but Xu’s poems need to stand as a reminder of humanity refusing to be erased by the assembly line.
This chapbook was printed and hand-bound in Milwaukee, WI in an edition of 100. For every 10 copies sold we will send a copy to Scott Walker in hopes that he too will read them.
All proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to the IWW General Defense Committee.
Poems translated by Friends of Nao and published with their permission. We are grateful for their help in making this book possible.
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Let Them Eat Cake
Ginger Lukas, 2018
In this essay, Ginger Lukas chronicles her time working as a cake decorator at the bakery counter of a chain grocery store after realizing the ceramics career she was
on track for just wasn’t working out. Lukas explores the precariousness of retail labor and how workers find ways to maintain their humanity and creativity in a dehumanizing environment.
Complete with photographs of subversive cakes made on the job, the chapbook is printed on recycled papers, hand-folded and bound, with a cover printed by a robot arm.
Ginger Lukas is an artist living and working between Wisconsin and various other places. She received a BFA from MICA and an MFA in ceramics from University of Wisconsin. She was an artist in residence at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, PA from 2011-2012 and is currently an artist in residence through the Enos Park Neighborhood Improvement Association in Springfield, IL.
This is the first in the Adjunct Press 2018 Retail Labor Series.
Price: $8
Adjunct Press 