Shirt by Robert Pinsky –

Robert Pinsky is one of America’s foremost poet-critics. Often called the last of the “civic” or public
poets. Shirt is one of his well read poems and it is about a great fire accident in 1911.In the poem, Pinsky
goes through all the steps in the production of the shirt. The shirt is symbolic of the conditions of
workers in the sweat factories. It Symbolizes the vanity and materialism that people admire (Especially
without understanding the circumstances in which the materials were made)

It asks the reader to look at items that are commonly taken for granted not just as objects, but as the
product of material, lives, work, history, and design. Even though these objects may seem to be
extremely plain, Pinsky believes that they are able to elicit various thoughts. The poem takes readers to
the factory where the shirt was made, describing the Malaysian and Koreans workers. The poem pays
tribute to the Malaysian and Korean workers in the Triangle Shirts factory.

Shirt is a free verse with 48 lines, the lack of rhyme scheme resonates with the chaos caused due to the
fire and allows Pinsky to not worry about rhyming and just get his message across. The isolated noun
phrases at the start of the poem ‘The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams’ displays the shirts
features. The use of factory terminologies such as “The wringer, the mangle. The needle, the union,”
plays a vital role in bringing out the setting and the mood of the poem. The poem is written as a series of
sixteen sections of three lines each, in which pinsky sways back and forth between the procedure of
making a shirt and the triangle fire incident The use of the sounds of the consonants in the language for
the parts of the machine give the poem a hypnotizing effect.When he brings the reader back to the
details of the physical shirt each time, he changes his emphasis somewhat, visiting different aspects. In
this way, his imagery is used to focus the reader’s attention back on the shirt. When discussing The Shirt
Pinksy's tone is delicate, ethereal, and exquisite , when describing the shirt Pinksy will become more
descriptive by increasing the amount of commas and adjectives. This will also result in an increased
pace, and when discussing the historical events Pinksy's tone is dismal and somber, When discussing the
historical events will use periods sparingly thus slowing down the pace. This language plays a crucial role
in capturing the reader’s attention. More important, this terminology reminds the reader of what it
takes to have fully made shirt.

The theme of the poem is the juxtaposition of the intricate and beautiful shirt with the harsh
circumstances of its creation suggests that throughout history people have appreciated vain and
materialistic items without understanding or caring about the people exploited for their product.
Throughout the poem, Pinsky juxtaposes the beauty of the shirt with different injustices throughout
history with how the shirt was produced.The shirt juxtaposed with the Korean Sweatshops, the Triangle
Factory Fire. The shirt juxtaposed with the mill owners who brutalized their Scottish workers and with
slaves picking cotton in the fields for the shirt
In the sixth line, ‘Of cuff I button my wrist.’ he is describing the gruesome accident he shifts again
mentioning the pattern and the plackets. This transition is mostly managed through grammar. The noun
phrases at the beginning is followed by a past participle and then again by gerund. With the change in
the grammar the idea also shifts. The use of enjambment by placing periods in between the lines helps
to establish word grouping that are crucial for the drama of association. Pinsky goes on to talk about a
fire at a shirt factory in 1911 in which 146 people died. “The Code” that is mentioned in the last line of
stanza three refers to the New York City codes that were violated and not as stringent as they should
have been, leading to a great loss of life during the Triangle Fire and alludes to the laws that govern the
working conditions in the factories. The poet also alludes to slavery when he says “The planter, the
picker, the sorter, sweating at her machine in a litter of cotton”. Pinsky likes to always address society in
his poems. Although this isn’t modern society, Pinsky shows how corrupt and unfair slavery was.

"Away from the masonry wall and let her drop. Then another. As if he were helping them up/ To enter a
streetcar, and not eternity. This line contains visual Imagery of the girls being dropped to their deaths,
kissing the man. This creates a sense of empathy in the readers. The infamous blaze is an image that
plays a crucial role in bringing out the theme about the exploitation and suffering of workers in the
sweat factories. Furthermore, the inclusion of fire in the poem evokes empathy in the reader because it
shows that the laborers in the sweat factories are tormented. “Around his neck and kissed him. Then he
held/Her into space, and dropped her…” this line helps the reader to visualize the death of the labors.

In section five, though the reader thinks he or she has learned a bit about the Triangle fire, Pinsky
extends the tension by telling the reader that “The witness in a building across the street” “Who
watched how a young man helped a girl to step/Up to the windowsill, then held her out” (Lines 14-
15) Pinsky has created a powerful image of a man helping the girls out of the window onto the ledge,
holding them out, and then dropping them to their death, presumably a less painful death than being
burned alive.

The next scene in the poem displays a vision of martyrs from the Triangle Shirtwaist factory falling to
their death and is juxtaposed with a reference to Hart Crane’s poem “To Brooklyn Bridge.” This image
brings the reader back to the subject of the poem: the shirt. Furthermore, he mentions George Herbert
who was a famous poet in the seventeenth century and the ancestor of Irma. Irma is the woman from
South Carolina that is tasked with the responsibility of inspecting the shirt. The capitalization of words in
the middle of sentences emphasize their importance (Example: your descendant is a Black Lady in South
Carolina). Again, the garment, the reader, and the people involved in producing the garment have been
drawn together.