Steel Town (review)

Part informative treatise on the heyday of the American steel industry, part paean to blue-collar labor, Winter's poetic text traces the fiery journey of ore to iron to steel and celebrates the grinding, sweaty toil of the men who run it through the mill. The relentless heat and din of the 24/7 operation is captured in pulsing repetitions: "Inside the iron mill,/ it's like another world:/ fire and smoke,/ fire and smoke./ No matter the time of day or night,/ the men keep working,/ the machines don't stop:/ fire and smoke,/ fire and smoke." Everywhere there's danger—rivers of molten metal, train cars of bubbling ore that teeter on overhead rails, furnaces that measure degrees in thousands rather than hundreds. The lunchtime whistle heralds the only respite the workers will enjoy, from the time they climb down the stairs on Goat Hill Path at the beginning of the shift until "another shift is over./ Time to punch the time-card./ Time to get paid:/ Three crinkly bills/ in a grimy hand./ That means food." Widener's husky acrylic paintings turn the towering machines, furnaces, and smokestacks into smoldering monuments to industry, and the smoke-infused air grapples with the brilliant orange flames for the right to color the sky. He also takes just enough artistic liberty with scale and perspective to allow the workers to emerge as masters of the beast, trudging home beat but not quite beaten. Blast some Aaron Copland in the background and make this the centerpiece for a Labor Day program.