Plastic: A Poem

＂A poem based on Matthew Rice’s experience working in a plastic molding factory for ten years. Illustrating alienated twenty-first-century Irish labor in poetic form, plastic engages with the inflictions and implications of a ＂post-industrial,＂ ＂post-Troubles＂ society while weaving in depictions of factory work from literature, film, and the visual arts. Time-stamped to highlight the claustrophobia of the worker’s experience, Rice meditates on masculinity, sectarianism, and intergenerational trauma. But at its core is a poem about feeling a calling while being submerged in the world of menial labor--making plastic airplane parts by night, making poetry by day＂-- Provided by publisher.

MATTHEW RICE was born in Belfast. He holds an MA in Poetry from Queen’s University, Belfast, and is currently undertaking a PhD at The Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s. His debut collection, The Last Weather Observer, was published in 2021 to critical acclaim, was Highly Commended for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and was included on the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s top ten books of the year.