I am here today to introduce my new book Work Is Work. This is my debut poetry collection, and it is out now.
It’s available in paperback, hardcover, and ebook. I’m excited to share it with you all.
Many of you who subscribe to Garbage Notes have been following my path as a writer since back in like 2019. Back in the days when I started writing on Medium. When I founded Scuzzbucket, where I worked with a lot of talented writers trying to make a name for themselves. And without even realizing it, this project here has been over 7 years in the making.
I started writing some of the poems in this collection before I even knew I wanted to be an author. It came out of this restless need to communicate the struggles I had been dealing with for years.
Primarily how to find meaning in work.
Sadly, the most common first question I get asked when I meet a new person—whether it’s a fellow writer or someone off the street—the most common question is, “So, what do you do for work?”
As if a person’s identity is inextricably tied to what they do for money. And at various points in my life this question has been fairly easy to answer, but at other times it’s been almost excruciating to have to explain what I do for work. Because to me, the writing is the work. Everything else I do is in service of that. But that’s not the answer people are looking for.
I know it’s not just me. A lot of creative people struggle with this. Because to the artist, the writer, the poet, musician—you fill in the blank with the creative enterprise—there’s going to be some kind of internal conflict between what that person does in order to make money and what that person does in order to feel alive.
Now, I have had so many jobs in my life, and many of them have made me miserable. Working to make money has always felt like this obligatory thing. Something we have no choice about. We have to survive, right? You can’t write if you don’t eat.
I grew up poor, in Paterson, New Jersey. First generation Italian to immigrant parents. So, life was basically all about working. Get an education so you can get a job. You work to live, you don’t live to work. Whether you like it or not—you’re no one if you don’t work. And the more respectable your position, the more perceived value you have as a human being. That was basically the mentality.
Of course, there’s tons of problems when it comes to thinking this way. If your intrinsic self worth is forever tied to your employment status and a paycheck, you begin to lose touch with who you really are. And so throughout my life I’ve always had to make certain tradeoffs between what I do for my own personal satisfaction, in pursuit of my passion, to nurture my soul—and the shit I’ve had to do to make a buck.
This all goes way back even to when I started out in academia. I remember all the crap I’d have to do in the summer for work study, just so that I could get my tuition reimbursements. The exams I’d have to proctor, the classes I’d have to TA for, the grading, the photocopying, the classes I’d have to teach in the fucking dead-ass winter, all the uninteresting administrative stuff you have to do as an academic just to earn your keep.
And I thought that academic shit was bad in my twenties. But when I left academia, I faced, like, the real working world. A world I hadn’t had to deal with since I was a teenager. I’m talking mind-numbing stuff—the daily grind. The nine to five. And you all know what a mess that is. It was a rude awakening. Like, I don’t even want to go into all the shitty jobs I’ve done between leaving academia and now, just to stay alive.
And fortunately I don’t have to go into it here, because it’s all in this collection. It’s distilled into poetry. Because sometimes the best thing you can do with your suffering, is to transmute it into art. So that the world can share in the healing and the catharsis, and so that the injustices you’ve had to experience can now have a voice.
So, with that said, I present to you my collection Work Is Work. It features original cover art and design from an artist named Natàlia Pàmies.
I hope those of you who are interested in buying it find some value and solace in it. It would not have been possible, really, without the kind and generous support of you, the audience, the subscribers, everyone who has left a thoughtful note or comment, bought me a coffee, or given their valuable time and attention to these words over the years.
You can purchase the book right now on Amazon, or if you prefer, you can get it at B&N and other booksellers on Aug. 14.
Franco Amati 2026
If you enjoyed this piece, a paid subscription would be the best way to show your support. But if you aren’t ready for that sort of commitment yet, you can always send me a one-time donation on my Ko-fi page or buy my book Work Is Work.
Just got your book on Kindle. Well put: "I'm just saying we should be careful about the stories we make up to justify the unfair and utterly bullshit systems that keep honest people struggling... the facts say, if you grow up poor, there's a 90 percent chance you'll become a poor adult"
Congratulations, Franco, and happiest of book birthdays for what I know will be a marvelous and inspiring poetry collection. I look forward to reading it!