Cultural depictions of spiders the West", and was remade as a 1967 Hong Kong cinema production. Many horror films have featured the spider, including 1955's "Tarantula", exploiting America's fear of atomic radiation during the nuclear arms race, the 1975 low-budget cult film "The Giant Spider Invasion", and "Kingdom of the Spiders", a 1977 film starring William Shatner, depicting the consequence of hungry spiders deprived of their natural food supply due to pesticides. The fear of spiders culminates in "Arachnophobia", a 1990 movie in which spiders multiply in large numbers. On the other hand, a person who admires spiders is referred to as an "arachnophile";
What Work Is Fame" and "Growth" are direct accounts of two of Levine's jobs as a young man. "Fear and Fame" is based on a job Levine had cleaning out and refilling acid vats in his mid twenties. "Growth" is about the job Levine held at a soap factory at the age of fourteen. Many of Levine's poems are based on his experience growing up in Detroit. The titular poem, "What Work Is", is based on Levine's experience of waiting in a Detroit employment line. "The Right Cross" is related to a boxing teacher who taught Levine to defend himself while growing up