The Poetics of Precarious Work in the Poetry of Fred Voss and Martin Hayes.

This article examines the poetry of Fred Voss and Martin Hayes, two working-class poets whose extensive bodies of work portray the precarious conditions of manual and gig economy labor in the United States and the United Kingdom. Drawing on their firsthand experiences as a machinist and a courier controller respectively, their poems reveal the physical, economic, and psychological challenges faced by workers marginalized under late capitalism, including job insecurity, alienation, and lack of union protection. The article highlights how their narrative, often unadorned poetic forms serve as both testimony and critique of industrial and service-sector labor, while also addressing the limited recognition of working-class perspectives within mainstream poetry publishing. Ultimately, it argues that Voss and Hayes embody the dual role of worker and witness, using poetry to expose and resist the ongoing erosion of labor rights and dignity in contemporary economies.