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By Jack Joseph Smith

An Intellectual Laborer He went to dig at the dirt. At least Swans fly low through Louisiana moss. Fast with omph and stretched tongue; he looked round the Earth Then with precision; he breasted up all his energy into his narrow vision It was like that Swan's lost fear of the hunter; when speed wouldn't permit anything but the next Moon: He did not change direction; he just went into the Earth with a shovel Maybe like a beak after a Mole on a mountain, it was difficult flight going down But still like a birdhead in the sky; he felt sure he could lose his mind Women and children overlooked him from above, but he could concentrate on nothing that it was all abouts, as Jesus over the Swan, and the Swan never looking up, because of being busy being fast The instant the Swan was shot; he stopped his project on the family grave He then approached the men who had blown out both brains, and laughed at them like an estate at each and every boss His removal with some ease in deliberation recognized... They had little on him in terms of repetition

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The poem fuses digging, bird imagery, death, and class contempt to portray labor as a driven, half-mad act of defiance.

The laborer digging at the dirt is repeatedly compared to swans, moles, and beaks, so work becomes animal motion guided by instinct and velocity rather than reflection. The turn at the family grave and the shot swan brings mortality directly into the poem's account of effort. When he laughs at the men and bosses, the figure becomes resistant and unreadable, someone whose repetitions have hardened into a strange kind of superiority.

Claude

A parable of 'An Intellectual Laborer' who 'went into the Earth with a shovel', his single-minded digging braided through the page with a low-flying Louisiana swan that gets 'shot' mid-flight, after which he 'stopped his project on the family grave' and 'laughed at them like an estate at each and every boss'.

The poem runs man and bird in parallel until they comment on each other: the swan dies 'because of being busy being fast', never 'looking up', and the laborer succeeds for the same reason - he 'breasted up all his energy into his narrow vision' and 'did not change direction'. Work becomes animal velocity, 'like a beak after a Mole on a mountain', a 'difficult flight going down', and the speaker even floats the cost - 'he felt sure he could lose his mind'. The shooting of the swan is the hinge that stops the digging and exposes the human stakes, the 'family grave' suddenly literal. The closing revenge is class-tinged but oblique: laughing 'like an estate' at the bosses who 'had blown out both brains' gives the worker an ownership the bosses can't touch, while 'Jesus over the Swan' lifts the scene past simple allegory. Source forms 'omph', 'birdhead', and 'abouts' are kept as written.