Pumpernickel an old Bavarian term for "hard", either referring to the process used to grind the grain into flour, or the density of the final bread product. According to "Langenscheidts Taschen Wörterbücher" (1956), it refers to a form of "pumping work". The philologist Johann Christoph Adelung states that the word has an origin in the Germanic vernacular where was a New High German synonym for being flatulent, and was a form of the name Nicholas, commonly associated with a goblin or devil (e.g. "Old Nick", a familiar name for Satan), or more generally for a malevolent spirit or demon. Hence, "pumpernickel"
What Work Is sometimes been criticized for leaning too hard on his blue-collar "bona fides". The critic Adam Kirsch, writing in "The Times Book Review" in 1999, noted, accurately enough, that “in his autobiographical essays he goes out of his way to tell us that he is essentially a peasant.” David Baker, writing about "What Work Is" (1991) in the "Kenyon Review", said Levine has “one of our most resonant voices of social conviction and witness, and he speaks with a powerful clarity…What Work Is may be one of the most important books of poetry of our time. Poem after poem confronts the