Penn State Altoona professor’s poetry collection reviewed in journal

ALTOONA, Pa. - A review essay of "Human Resources," a new book of documentary poems by Erin Murphy, professor of English at Penn State Altoona, is featured in the journal "Plume."

Drawing comparisons to Muriel Rukeyser's poetry and the TV series "Severance," reviewer Jennifer Sutherland describes Murphy's poems as ranging from "thoughtful, layered, and....heart breaking" to "positively surreal." Sutherland writes that Murphy "engages with work performed in fields, in ramshackle warehouses, and on assembly lines, spoken in the voices of the workers themselves" and notes that her "human subjects…speak for themselves, and beautifully."

"Human Resources," Murphy's tenth full-length book of poetry, was published in June by Grayson Books.

Sutherland points to the timeliness of the collection, concluding, "Someone, someday, somewhere should be able to read about what we were like when we were like this."