In Philip Levine’s poem “what is work” the author takes an unpleasant personal experience of looking for work and turns it around and applies it to career dreams for his brother.
Levine suffers the indignity of waiting in the rain with others, when a low-paying job call he is responding to in the seems to be more like a “cattle call.” Job seekers are requested to report for an interview prior to the arrival of hiring personnel -- a situation brought about because the potential employer does not feel that anyone interested in working will show up at the designated opening time.
Levine sublimates his own physical (wet) and emotional turmoil (How dare they think that a poor man will not show on time?) with images of his singing-loving brother. He knows that his brother, a student of opera who studies German ‘so that he can sing Wagner’ is probably asleep having worked at a Cadillac plant all night.
The author’s frustration mellows with love toward his sibling and the hope is that his brother escapes from Cadillac, realizes his operatic dreams, and never ends up on a cattle call in pursuit of them.
Levine's dreams for his sibling are similar to the dream that Mike Lefevre (a character in Studs Terkel's book "Working")has for his son (xxxvii). Mike wants his
son to rise above him and work smart and not toil at hard labor.
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