Payday at the Triangle by Ruth Daigon
Cover and Interior Book design by David Alpaugh
Book Review by Mary Barnet
Concord, CA: Small Poetry Press, Select Poets Series, Copyright © 2001,
39 pp., paperback $9.00(includes postage). ISBN: 1-891298-10-0

Ruth Daigon singer/editor/performance/poet's latest prize is the Greensboro National Poetry Prize 2000, Kimera's chapbook prize to be anthologized in hardcopy in February 2001. Her latest publications on the WEB are ForPoetry, Conspire, Poetry Repair Shop, Ste. 101, Kota Press, Writer's Quill.... and
in (hard copy) Heaven Bone, Maelstrom, Southern California anthology, A Room of One's Own... and a poetry collection "The Moon Inside" (Gravity/Newton's Baby Press, 2000) ...plus a selection of her poems entitled "The Greatest Hits of Ruth Daigon 1970-1990" is forthcoming from Pudding House as part of their Chapbook Series and a chapbook "Payday at the Triangle" has been in the works for awhile.

Well, "Payday at the Triangle" is here! "Payday at the Triangle" is both compelling and engaging. It recounts the story of the tragic 1911 Triangle shirtwaist factory fire and is starkly and very effectively illustrated with newspaper clippings and photos of the time.  The smoke, flame and the terror of the 148 victims are palpable in Ruth Daigon's poems which tell the individual tales of persons involved in the terrible fire.

This is a work of import which recounts passionately and with skill one of the primary events leading to the beginning of workplace safety regulation in place in the US today. The poems bring to life from the point of view of these young women, their families and observers an event which electrified New York City, and the nation when it occurred. I recommend that you buy and read this book! 

The author's poetry also appears at:

www.poetrymagazine.com

web page: http://members.aol.com/RUTHART

http://www.webdelsol.com/LITARTS/Ruth_Daigon    chapbook

http://www.alsopreview.com/daigon/daigon.htm 

PAYDAY can be purchased through two sources:

Small Poetry Press, P.O. Box 5342, Concord, CA 94524

Ruth Daigon, 86 Sandpiper Circle, Corte Madera, CA 94925

$9.00 (includes postage)