Inspired by Claude Mc Kay’s “The Tired Worker”
By: Sofia Garcia
5-star review
When one first reads Claude Mc Kay’s “The Tired Worker”, it is difficult to decipher the poem’s meaning. “The Tired Worker” seems very personal. He writes about his daily routine. If we think about it, we can all relate because where we think about it or not, we all have a daily routine that we are stuck just like Claude Mc Kay’s speaker.
Such a relatable theme can apply almost one hundred years from when the poem was written. This relatable theme makes it easy to make a comic to show to the modern world what Claude Mc Kay’s poem means. I could have written a sonnet to explain a sonnet, but that wasn’t very fitting in setting. Free verse was a better fit because it fit the comic’s story board. Not only that, but it breaks the format which is like breaking the routine that Claude McKay alludes to in his poem “The Tired Worker”. I also break a grammar rule. Instead of using capital “I” to refer to myself use lowercase “i” for the sake of break the normal use of “I”.
I like to think that my poem is the modern version of Claude Mc Kay’s “The Tired Worker”. Claude Mc Kay talks about his routine and talk about mine. The words are the twenty-first century version of a stressful daily routine and the pictures are 1930’s version of a daily routine. I put them together on the same page to show that much hasn’t changed about how Americans go about their daily lives in 90 years. Our heads still spin when we plan out our day and realize how many things, we have to do that day. I do know that we are stuck in a cycle that I would like to end, but I point out that the problem with that is that humans are creatures of habit. We have the weekend to forget about the cycle. I create a paradox which I don’t directly state. The weekdays may be a tedious cycle, but the fact that pretend that we don’t have a tedious weekday cycle on the weekends is also a routine. Going out with friends or family on every weekend is fun but it is another cycle. You can also think of it as the week is one big cycle: you grind on the weekdays and you have fun on the weekend. Mind blowing, isn’t it?
Introduction to Poetry 