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And by our sole corporate sponsor, mutual of america, designing customized individual and Group Retirement products. Thats why were your retirement company. Welcome. You knew from the start that pope francis was going to be different. The first pope in history to take the name of the patron saint of the poor, he speaks differently, in a voice were not used to hearing, criticizing the widening gap between those who have more and those who must be content with the crumbs. In his recent apostolic exhortation on the economy of exclusion and inequality, he said quote, the worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy, he said, lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings. What he does is different, too. Inviting the homeless to share his food, washing the feet of prisoners, and telephoning words of encouragement to those in need. Remember his trip to sardinia . That mediterranean island of opulent homes for rich jetsetters is staggering under the number of everyday people who are unemployed including about 50 of its young. Seeing their plight, the pope threw aside his prepared speech and talked from the heart of how unemployment robs you of hope. The crowd of 20,000 cheered, and when francis told them, you must fight for work, they cheered again, and broke into a chant that the pope heard not as a cry for welfare or charity but for work, work, work. We wait to see if he can bend the Institutional Church to his exhortation, but for the moment it seems as if in just a matter of months the spirit of occupy wall street has become a oneman occupation of the vatican. Francis is the first jesuit to become pope, prompting me to ask the jesuiteducated Thomas Cahill what he thinks about all this. I first met tom cahill years ago when he was director of religious publishing for doubleday. Since then millions of readers have come to know him as the bestselling author of now six books on the hinges of history, moments and ideas that have shaped our world, including how the irish saved civilization, the gifts of the jews, and this one, just published, heretics and heroes, which i recommend for this eve of the new year because its about new beginnings and new ideas, the stirrings of renaissance and reformation. Thomas cahill, welcome back. Its good to see you, bill. Is this pope a hero or a heretic . Well, in the book that i just wrote, most of the heretics are heroes and most of the heroes are heretics. So, and its a little hard to tell, and of course its too soon. It depends on your point of view. And there are certainly people who are calling francis a heretic. You know, every clergyman is a politician. We forget that for some odd reason. Theres no you cant be a clergyperson and not be a political person. Or you would certainly never rise, you would certainly never get to be pope. So these guys, whoever they are, are political. It doesnt mean that theyre bad any more than it means that our senators are necessarily bad. But theyre not necessarily good either. Because everybody comes up in difficult ways. How do you ascend to be a senator or a bishop . Well, its not simple. And not everybody does it the same way. I would say that the last several popes have been largely surprises. John paul, benedict . Well, lets go back to john xxiii. The people who elected him thought that he would be an interim. He was an old man; he was a fat, old man. And he was very pleasant. And they thought he would just be pleasant. Well, they made a big mistake because john xxiii changed the catholic church, and wouldve changed it a lot more in my opinion had he lasted a little bit longer. Then you got john paul ii was elected because they thought he was a liberal. And they were wrong, you know . So this happens a lot, that there are, you know, oh, look what we got. This isnt what we expected at all. So what do you think was expected of francis . Well, i dont think they could possibly have expected that they were getting somebody similar to benedict xvi, his predecessor. Who was quite conservative. Who was quite conservative and who i think even the many conservative cardinals who participated in this election knew this wasnt working. They needed something else. They needed better coverage. They needed a more public person. Benedict xvi, to tell the truth, mostly liked to sit at his piano and play mozart, you know, which is a nice thing to do. But its not very helpful to the papacy. So i think they were looking for something that would be surprising. They may have gotten more of a surprise than they expected. Because the last two pontificates have, john paul ii and benedict, have been extremely conservative. So they have appointed only conservative bishops, who then in their turn became conservative cardinals. And thats who elected the new francis. But i do think that they probably got more than they expected. Have you read the exhortation that allegedly he wrote himself . Yes, and i think he did write it himself. What struck you about it . The most beautiful things about it are very, very simple, you know, where he says things like, we the evangelizers should have on us the smell of the sheep. And then he says, our shoes should be muddy. And what do you make of that . Well, it doesnt sound like papal shoes to me, you know . Theres a papal cobbler, for gods sake. You know, this guy is and hes cutting through many things, as many as he possibly can. How do you explain that . Well, hes not interested in a severely narrow church. Like john xxiii in the 60s who wanted to raise the windows of the church. Yes. And let in some fresh air. Pope francis is being pummeled, as you know, by many conservatives. Rush limbaugh says, hes spouting pure marxism. And theres a headline on foxnews. Com that says, the pope is the Catholic Churchs obama, god help us. What are they afraid of . Well, i think theyre not really afraid of pure marxism. They might be more afraid of pure christianity which it sounds to me is what hes spouting. Hes talking about the poor, as jesus did. Hes talking about the absolute necessity for us to take care of the poor, to do something for them. You know, which is a necessary part of the christian message. If you dont have that, youre not talking about christianity. Youre talking about something else. But it comes at a time when this country is going in the exact opposite direction of where pope francis is talking about. With regard to the United States alone, there is a real crisis which is partially religious and partially political. Where you have people like paul ryan whos considered an upstanding catholic, who is really just in favor of the most dreadful forms of the market. You know, he is in favor of, you know, capitalism without any room for people who are being left behind. The pope criticizes quote, a deified market. He also says, beware of a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power. I mean, i dont think theyre going to ask him to ring the bell at the opening of the market, do you . No. I mean, hes not against capitalism, he doesnt say that or any but hes talking the way jesus talked. Thats his model, obviously. It sure as hell isnt paul ryans model, or rush limbaughs or any of these guys. They, you know, they would like to muffle real christianity as much as possible. And by real christianity you mean . Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. The words of jesus have nothing to do with aggressive economics. Some conservatives have criticized him for saying that the church needs to stop being quote, obsessed with abortion and gay marriage. Well, he did say that and its about time somebody did say it. He talks over and over again about people who are fixated on doctrine or even fixated on a certain kind of liturgy. You know, that you have to do things this way, you cant do them that way. He doesnt care about all of that. And hes making it clear that he doesnt. And its driving the its not just driving conservatives crazy, its driving crazy the people who can only see things one way. You know, theyre more than a political conservatives. Theyre psychological types. And theyre psychological types within the religion. Anybody who grew up in any religion knows these people. Theyre the people who everything must be this way. It can never be that way. Well, you know what . It can. Theres a footnote in that regard on page 265 of your book i want to ask you about. Quote, one might write a book on the subconscious links between belief, cruelty, and sex in the psyches of religious radicals and of far more orthodox figures as well. Do you think the church is beginning to face the realities of sex . No. But it would be nice if they did. I think that francis may have some clues about it. But it has an awful long an awfully long way to go. In writing these books, six of them so far, ive come to the conclusion that there are really only two movements in the world. One is kindness, and the other is cruelty. I dont think theres anything else, really. You can explain virtually everything by those two movements. The cruelty in religion is so often a form of, under no circumstances may you do this, because if you do, we will exclude you. Thats not how jesus spoke. Jesus is the one who, you know, lifted the weeping prostitute off the floor and said, your sins are forgiven you. He had no problem with Sexual Deviancy of any kind. Its we who have that problem. And its a problem for institutionalized religion as it is for institutionalized anything. The institutions will tend to exclude. And this pope at least sends messages of inclusion. Hes saying we shouldnt be so we shouldnt be concerned about these things. But so far, he has said very little about including women. I think he cannot make the changes, the sexual changes that need to be made without many more people in agreement with him. He is not going to legislate female priests or new forms of divorce or any of those things that have that other popes have been against. It would be too hard for him. He wouldnt have the backing that he needs. Hes not he is a politician. Hes not stupid. He can go further on economics, can he . Because yes. There is a long tradition among the bishops of economic justice. Of being right, and theres the long tradition among the popes. I mean, the papacy was one of the first institutions to stand up in favor of unionism. In the 19th century, when no one was in favor of unionism, the popes were in favor of unionism. They still are. Do you think, you know, this is an old argument, do you think monotheism encourages intolerance of other beliefs. I dont really think that monotheism particularly does that any more than other religions. I think one of the problems with religion in general is people getting on their high horse about one thing or another. And when they get on their high horse, they make terrible mistakes. Such as starting wars. You dont have to be religious to do that. You just have to have a high horse. You know, you just have to have something that youre going to promote to the death, because its so important that you cant possibly imagine the World Without it. How far do you think francis can go in lifting the window of inclusiveness . I think it depends on things that are yet to happen. It partly depends upon his vigor. He seems to have plenty of that. He doesnt seem to like this idea of being addressed as, your holiness. Well, it is absurd. I mean, no one is no human being can actually be addressed as your holiness. And he, no, hes not interested in any of that. Its really extraordinary. Where do you place yourself on that spectrum, between, say, john xxiii back in the 60s, the second vatican, and pope francis . Youve had a lot of different kinds of popes in between. Well, i like both of them. Yeah right, youre on the extremes. And i think that all partisanship and sectionalism within christianity is stupid. I dont think there really is anything to fight about. Christians should just stop it. Theres nothing, you know, and actually, in this exhortation, francis constantly speaks of christians. He never talks about catholics. He says christians, you know, should christians have to go out and take care of the poor. Well, hes talking to everyone. Hes not just talking to catholics. Hes passing that by. Which is to me extremely refreshing. So are you a believing christian, but not a practicing catholic . Im a believing christian who finds himself equally at home and equally impatient and equally illatease in virtually any church. Why is that . I just dont think that it matters that much. I think that weve, you know, in the 16th and 17th centuries, we killed one another over doctrine. It was after this period that you finally had in the period of the enlightenment, people saying, do we really have to keep doing this . Do we really have to keep is it really necessary to kill one another . Couldnt we just agree to disagree . And then you have the beginning of a new era. And its time that we got past the largely silly divisions, theological divisions, which really dont count. Because people dont care about those things anymore. What do you think they care about . Or what do you care about . Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Thats christianity. The rest of it, isnt worth a hill of beans. Thomas cahill, thanks for being with me. Lets continue this conversation online and talk about your new book heretics and heroes. Yeah, id love to. The popes vigor on behalf of working people resonates right here in america among workers fighting for a living wage. On black friday, that big shopping day after thanksgiving, some 1500 demonstrations took place at walmarts around the country. And then, on the heels of the walmart protests, fast food workers staged the latest in a yearlong series of walkouts and demonstrations, this time in more than 100 cities, demanding a raise in the minimum wage at mcdonalds and other chains to 15 an hour. Now the companies yell right back, of course, but they can afford what the employees are asking for. The six walmart heirs alone have a combined net worth of nearly 145 billion. You heard me right, 145 billion for choosing their parents well. Mcdonalds reportedly just bought its second 35 million Corporate Jet to fly executives around at a cost of 6,500 an hour while its workers can barely scrape together the pennies for a happy meal. We are losing sight of who really keeps this country working, and thats why i asked the poet Philip Levine to join me. He once labored in the heat, grit and noise of the Assembly Lines at the automobile plants of detroit where he discovered that his gift for verse could provide a voice for the voiceless. Hes the author of twenty collections of poems, as well as books of translations and essays, and has been the recipient of the pulitzer and two National Book awards. He recently served as the nations poet laureate at the library of congress. One critic described Philip Levine as a large, ironic whitman of the industrial heartland. Philip levine, welcome. Thank you. You worked in factories when you were a young boy. What kind of work . I worked for a place called chevrolet gear and axle, long gone. And that was working on large Punch Presses in a forge room. So it was very hot and dangerous. And it was a kind of job that you could not attend to. You had to be conscious of what you were doing. You were sticking metal with tongs into this press and waiting for it to come down. And then you were taking it and you were hanging it on something. And you couldnt daydream, you know . You could and people told me, you cant daydream. Men have lost their hands in these damned machines. That was the worst job i ever had. It was numbing, you know . Later on i worked for a place called wyandotte chemical and you worked at height. Wrapping asbestos around these great pipes that were transferring stuff. And youd have to wear a mask. And so after about two weeks, i was having nightmares about falling down to the earth that i always thought was friendly. It didnt look very friendly from up there on the scaffold. You know . Detroit at that time was in its heyday, as the industrial giant of america. Of the world. Of the world, yeah. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. And during the war, i mean, i could get a factory job that was restricted to an 18yearold, even though i was 16, by just going in and saying i was 18. They didnt ask for a birth certificate, they needed a body, right . How old were you when you wrote an abandoned factory, detroit . I was 29. And my twin brother sent me about the closing of chevrolet gear and axle, where i had worked, closing and being abolished, who knows what. And although detroit was still a going thing, but the factory was a mess when i worked there. And you know, i mean, it was old and junky. And i started thinking about my years there. I should say months. I didnt last a year. And it came out of that, it came out of in a way, a kind of deep pleasure, that little philip, 160 pounds, wiry guy, he has outlasted that huge factory. Can i coax you to read that one . Yeah, sure. All right. I havent read this poem in probably 40 years. Wow. Not even to myself. An abandoned factory, detroit. The gates are chained, the barbedwire fencing stands, an Iron Authority against the snow, and this grey monument to common sense resists the weather. Fears of idle hands, of protest, men in league, and of the slow corrosion of their minds, still charge this fence. Beyond, through broken windows one can see where the great presses paused between their strokes and thus remain, in air suspended, caught in the sure margin of eternity. The castiron wheels have stopped; one counts the spokes which movement blurred, the struts inertia fought, and estimates the loss of human power, experienced and slow, the loss of years, the gradual decay of dignity. Men lived within these foundries, hour by hour; nothing they forged outlived the rusted gears which might have served to grind their eulogy. It must be painful to you to see whats happened to detroit. Do you ever go back . Yeah. But i dont know it. I mean, that city that i knew so well, i dont know for a number of reasons. One, all these landmark buildings, a lot of them are gone. Movie theaters, or whatever. Also, there were no freeways when i lived there. So now, you would take, today, you would take a street, a major artery, with almost no cars on it. And it would stop. Why doesnt it keep going down to, you know . Because the freeway cuts in there. And i dont know those freeways. So i drive around and just get lost and lost again. You wrote a poem, coming home, detroit, 1968. Would you read this . And then sure. Tell me about it. Yeah. Coming home, detroit, 1968. A winter tuesday, the city pouring fire, ford rouge sulfurs the sun, cadillac, lincoln, chevy gray. The fat stacks of breweries hold their tongues. Rags, papers, hands, the stems of birches dirtied with words. Near the freeway you stop and wonder what came off, recall the snowstorm where you lost it all, the wolverine, the northern bear, the wolf caught out, ice and steel raining from the foundries in a shower of human breath. On sleds in the false sun the new material rests. One brown child stares and stares into your frozen eyes until the lights change and you go forward to work. The charred faces, the eyes boarded up, the rubble of innards, the cry of wet smoke hanging in your throat, the twisted river stopped at the color of iron. We burn this city every day. We burn this city every day. You know, i remember, i can still remember the impetus to the poem. I went back to detroit in 1968 to see my brother. And there was a lot of hostility in the city. There was a lot of hostility. You know, it was after those great riots, or rebellion, whatever word you want to use. 67. Yeah. And that atmosphere was still clearly there. Then when i left, the plane passed over the city. And everywhere, it was still a city of industry. The industry was still there in 1968. It was all this smoke coming up. And i thought, theres a profound way in which were burning this city inwardly. Were burning the hearts of our citizens. We were burning our souls, in a way, are charred. These faces, these representations. They are of who weve become, or are in danger of becoming. And it was a heartbreaking experience, because i could see then its over, its over. I was living in california. In 1968, half the cars in fresno were made in japan. So you could see the future . Oh yeah. There it was. And in 1968, i was driving a vw. Think small. Yes, yeah, yeah. And i thought, well, why dont they see it . And in detroit . Yeah. Well, maybe they did. I dont know. They they saw they saw it too late. They certainly did. Way too late. And then there is the poem they feed they lion. Where did that title come from . The title has a curious story. And when i was probably 18, at the most 19, i was working in what, in detroit, we call a grease shop. And a young man and i he was a couple years older, his name was eugene watkins. I still remember his name. We were sorting the crosses that go to universal joints. And the ones that had to be scrapped, we were putting in a big sack. And the ones that were salvageable, that could be reworked and rebuilt and used were going here. And threequarters of them were had to be junked. And eugene brought a big bag over, and wed finished one of these burlap sacks. And he held it up and it said, detroit municipal zoo. And he said, look at this, phil, they feed they lion they meal in they sacks. Thats just what he said. And he laughed. And i thought, he has reduced all the thirdperson pronouns to one. He has simplified the english language. This is amazing. Years later, during that era of huge unrest, racial tension detroit, newark, la. And one day i woke up with this dream about eugene. And remembered him saying, they feed they meal they lion they meal in they sacks. And i thought, theres a poem in there. There is a poem. I knew it instantly. I didnt know where it was going to go. I knew its title, they feed they lion. And i knew it had something to do with eugene, with my contact with detroit, with the racial situation, i knew that. But i didnt know where it was going to go. And when i sat down, i wrote it probably in 20 minutes. Heres what came out of that 20 minutes. Read that for us. Yeah, okay. They feed they lion. Out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter, out of black bean and wet slate bread, out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar, out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies, they lion grow. Out of the gray hills of industrial barns, out of rain, out of bus ride, West Virginia to kiss my ass, out of buried aunties, mothers hardening like pounded stumps, out of stumps, out of the bones need to sharpen and the muscles to stretch, they lion grow. Earth is eating trees, fence posts, gutted cars, earth is calling in her little ones, come home, come home from pig balls, from the ferocity of pig driven to holiness, from the furred ear and the full jowl come the repose of the hung belly, from the purpose they lion grow. From the sweet glues of the trotters come the sweet kinks of the fist, from the full flower of the hams the thorax of caves, from bow down come rise up, come they lion from the reeds of shovels, the grained arm that pulls the hands, they lion grow. From my five arms and all my hands, from all my white sins forgiven, they feed, from my car passing under the stars, they lion, from my children inherit, from the oak turned to a wall, they lion, from they sack and they belly opened and all that was hidden burning on the oilstained earth they feed they lion and he comes. I left out one crucial emotion that i had when i went back to detroit. I realized i was walking, i was downtown and i went into a little restaurant that made marvelous hot fudge sundaes that i knew from my childhood. And the atmosphere in the place was not friendly. I was the only white person there, including the people who were working there. And i got this realization, when these people look at me, they dont know me. They regard me in a way as exactly what i am. White and middle class. Which by this time, i was. I was a teacher, i was a university teacher. And they see me in many ways for what i am, a portion of their problem. And they had every right to view me this way, because what am i doing . I am i got my im middle aged now too, im middle everything. And im not, you know, youre either part of the problem or youre part of the solution. And i was part of the problem. And i saw myself in these terms. And this poem partly comes out of that. The sense that no matter how powerfully i feel sympathetic, this is their struggle. And they will make it without me. I can do theyre going to make it whether i help them or not. But theyre going to make it because they have this power. This human power. They can survive, they survived slavery, they survived detroit racism, industrialism, they will make it. They have a determination and a belief in themselves, that is awesome. And so in a way, i thought of that awesome power that they had, that you know, if you hit somebody in a way, he gains power over you if he survives it. And they had survived us. In all that we could do to wound them. And i was awed by it. And in a little way, kind of, you know, humiliated. Humiliated . A little bit, yes, because i wasnt doing as much as i shouldve done. Here is another one of your poems that id like you to read, the helmet. Yes. Okay. The helmet all the way on the road to gary he could see where the sky shone just out of reach and smell the rich smell of work as strong as money, but when he got there the night was over. People were going to work and back, the sidewalks were lakes no one walked on, the diners were saying time to eat so he stopped and talked to a woman whod been up late making helmets. There are white hands the color of steel, they have put their lives into steel, and if hands could lay down their lives these hands would be helmets. He and the woman did not lie down not because she would praise the steel helmet boarding a train for no war, not because he would find the unjewelled crown in a Surplus Store where hands were sold. They did not lie down face to face becausef the waste of being so close and they were too tired of being each other to try to be lovers and because they had to sit up straight so they could eat. Where did that come from . That came from working with women, in a place in detroit for a year, exactly a year. In which we made plumbing parts and plated them. And i worked afternoons there, and there were women there who had children, there were women who were single. The work was hard and the women would get very tired and, you know, you couldnt help but feel, oh my god, this is so tough. This is so dehumanizing. And i had such a feeling for those women who i, you know, id eat lunch, we would have a break for lunch, and wed talk and i got to know them, and i worked there exactly a year. You liked these women . They liked you . Yes, oh yes. I knew their names, we talked. There was one that i found extraordinary. I think shes in this book here. Its called coming close. Mind if i read it . Sure. If i can find it. Come on, find it. Yeah, this is from that place. And i tried to capture a sense of her, a sense of what her life was like, at least in those hours. A sense of how i felt toward her. Coming close take this quiet woman, she has been standing before a polishing wheel for over three hours, and she lacks twenty minutes before she can take a lunch break. Is she a woman . Consider the arms as they press the long brass tube against the buffer, they are striated along the triceps, the three heads of which clearly show. Consider the fine dusting of dark down above the upper lip, and the beads of sweat that run from under the red kerchief across the brow and are wiped away with a blackening wrist band in one odd motion a child might make to say no no you must come closer to find out, you must hang your tie and jacket in one of the lockers in favor of a black smock, you must be prepared to spend shift after shift hauling off the metal trays of stock, bowing first, knees bent for a purchase, then lifting with a gasp, the first word of tenderness between the two of you, then you must bring new trays of dull, unpolished tubes. You must feed her, as they say in the language of the place. Make no mistake, the place has a language, and if by some luck the power were cut, the wheel slowed to a stop so that you suddenly saw it was not a solid object but so many separate bristles forming in motion a perfect circle, she would turn to you and say, why . Not the old why of why must i spend five nights a week . Just, why . Even if by some magic you knew, you wouldnt dare speak for fear of her laughter, which now you have any way as she places the five tapering fingers of her filthy hand on the arm of your white shirt to mark you for your own, now and forever. I guess this partly came out of the fact that i knew i was getting out of there. And i knew she might not. Theres a tendency on the part of those of us who really admire your poetry to think everything is from your own experience. Coming close, yeah, i worked with her. She never said that. She never said those things. She never took her hand and wiped it on my white shirt. I mean, i didnt take that ride to gary, indiana, and meet that woman who made helmets. That never happened to me. There is a core of experience that one transforms in the making of a poem. And you have to be free to take it where it can go and where it can be most meaningful. Do you feel in control when youre writing . Or do you feel the song, the breath, the urge, the muse, whatever we want to call it, has taken over in some way difficult to describe to an outsider . Yes to both. I feel in control when thats taken over. Thats right. How do you explain that . It would be like trying to ask rafael nadal, why how could he win seven or eight consecutive french tournaments . What are you thinking of out there . Do you feel in control . Hes not thinking at all. He knows hes in control so he doesnt have to think at all. He just does it. And i think, this hasnt always happened. I mean, ive got poems in these books that, oh my god, i toiled over and toiled over and toiled over. And the ones that i toiled over, i really loved because they stuck with me until i got them right, you know . These had it easy, you know . These are like spoiled brats. Sometimes i think poets write poems without knowing why they write poems. And they dont have the meaning in them that we ask you to explain to us. You said sometimes . Id say most of the time. Really . Most oh, yes. You know, poems dont come to you in a sense through your rational brain. They come from inspiration and mysterious sources. Naturally, you dont want to be a dumbbell when youre writing, when you see something that youve written that contradicts this or is badly done or what have you. So your brain is operating. But it isnt your brain, quite or not brain. Your rational intelligence thats giving you the work. So after, you know, when youre young, you have almost an agenda. This is what im going to do with my poetry. Im going to say da, da, da, da, da. Well, all right, youre 15, 16, 18, whatever. By the time youre 22 or 23, youve said all those things. And nobody and the poems are mediocre. And nobody gives a damn what you said. So then you but meanwhile, this is exactly what happened to me, meanwhile, you fall absolutely in love with the making of poems. It becomes a source of unbelievable pleasure, the rewards it gives you. You cant describe how marvelous it feels to do it. Im sure painters feel it, jazz musicians must feel it when theyre on and the night, everythings going very well. You never know what is going into a poem, do you . No. But you have to be open and let it come, you know . Let it in. I have a notion that sometimes the more you let into a poem, the larger it becomes spiritually and meaningfully. Did you ever write from anger . Oh yes. God yeah, i wrote a lot of terrible poems of anger. Yes. What made you the angriest . American capitalism. Its heartlessness. And american racism. Yeah. Yeah. The conditions that are imposed upon the poor by the rich. Its a source of you never get over it. You never get over it. Its there. Its muted. Now because ive written about it so many times. And sometimes well and sometimes not so well. I mean, you know, youre always in danger with in anger of writing propagandistically. And you dont want to do that. Do you think theres been a class war fought against working people . Of course. By . Those who dont work. Those who live off the labors of those who work. Who have bought our politicians. Hello there, bought congressman. How are you doing . You won the National Book award for the book whose title is what work is. And heres a powerful poem from that. Talk about that poem, and read it. What work is we stand in the rain in a long line waiting at ford Highland Park. For work. You know what work isif youre old enough to read this you know what work is, although you may not do it. Forget you. This is about waiting, shifting from one foot to another. Feeling the light rain falling like mist into your hair, blurring your vision until you think you see your own brother ahead of you, maybe ten places. You rub your glasses with your fingers, and of course its someone elses brother, narrower across the shoulders than yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin that does not hide the stubbornness, the sad refusal to give in to rain, to the hours wasted waiting, to the knowledge that somewhere ahead a man is waiting who will say, no, were not hiring today, for any reason he wants. You love your brother, now suddenly you can hardly stand the love flooding you for your brother, whos not beside you or behind or ahead because hes home trying to sleep off a miserable night shift at cadillac so he can get up before noon to study his german. Works eight hours a night so he can sing wagner, the opera you hate most, the worst music ever invented. How long has it been since you told him you loved him, held his wide shoulders, opened your eyes wide and said those words, and maybe kissed his cheek . Youve never done something so simple, so obvious, not because youre too young or too dumb, not because youre jealous or even mean or incapable of crying in the presence of another man, no, just because you dont know what work is. I tell you, the poem grew out of a terrible moment once. I was watching maybe it was 60 minutes. And the story was a terrible story. The story of a father and son who beat a man to death with baseball bats, who they identified as japanese. He was actually chinese. And they were they felt detroit collapsing around them, right . And they felt, you know, this imposition from japan. Somehow, they took it out on this guy and killed him. They were white . Yeah. And i just couldnt believe it. I mean, i was just so shocked. And i sat down. I started writing. And i said something at the top of the page that i cant repeat on television about detroit. And then i just started and then i got this bitter memory of actually applying for a job at ford Highland Park once. And they said, you know, Employment Office opens at 8 00. And i got there, you know, around that time. And that was probably 20th in line or something. Well, they didnt open till 10 00. And it was drizzling. And i like a jerk stayed. All those two hours, i kept thinking, well, it open soon. Itll open no. We all stood there. And then i realized they want those of us who are willing to stand two hours in the rain. They want to hire us. They know how docile we are already. We just proved it to them. Well take any kind of crap they dish out, right . And i like an i was so angry that when i get up there and im still so mad. And the guy says to me, what kind of job are you expecting to get here . Looks up at me. And because im a fat mouth, i said, i want your job. I want to sit behind a desk and treat other men as swine, just the way youre treating me. You know . Thats what i want. Id like the power that you have. You know, i didnt swear at him or anything, but i just told him. And i walked away. And i felt good. I thought, good. Im not that submissive. You cant do that to me without my at least saying something, you know . And i remembered that. Did the year as poet laureate change you . No, no. It was fun. It was great fun. What was fun about it . Oh, i met so many interesting people, you know . For example, i was invited to read for the uaw aflcio. And it was just it was thrilling to read these poems and some love poems also. I mean, not just labor poems. I read a variety of poems for this audience that really cared about this. Men and women brought their children to meet me. I mean, it was so wonderful. So what do you take away from that . Oh, the pleasure of the moment. I mean, you know, and also just the sudden knowledge that, yeah, im not just somebody sitting in a room that nobody ever heard of. I mean, they read me. The act is complete. The act of writing is completed. Philip levine, ive enjoyed this very much. And i thank you for sharing your time and your work with us. Thank you, bill. At our website billmoyers. Com, as ive already said, theres more of my conversation with the writer Thomas Cahill, and a number of endoftheyear features including a look at some recent victories for democracy and the survey of the most underreported stories of 2013. Thats all at billmoyers. Com. Ill see you there, and ill see you here next year. Tavis good evening. From los angeles, i am tavis smiley. Tonight, a conversation with james mcbride. Him againhing up with as his novel recently won the prestigious National Book award, the best novel of 2013, winning out over some other very impressive tomes. We are glad you have joined us. A conversation with novelist james mcbride, coming up right now