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You Are Here, You Are Not a Ghost
Mark Doty
Doing the Work
Doing the Work
‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
Doing the Work
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
Doing the Work
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
Doing the Work
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
Doing the Work
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
Mark Doty
Mark Doty is the author of eight poetry collections including, Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008 and My Alexandria, which won the 1995 T. S. Eliot Prize. What Is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life will be published in April 2020. He lives in New York City.
Photograph © Rachel Eliza Griffiths