Pumpernickel means "devil's fart", a definition accepted by the publisher Random House, and by some English language dictionaries, including the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. The American Heritage Dictionary adds "so named from being hard to digest". A variant of this explanation is also given by the German etymological dictionary "Kluge" that says the word is older than its usage for the particular type of bread, and may have been used as a mocking name for a person of unrefined manners ("farting Nick") first. The change of meaning may have been caused by its use as a mocking expression for the (in the eyes
What Work Is terribly damaged conditions of American labor, whose circumstance has perhaps never been more wrecked.” After Levine was named Poet Laureate, "What Work Is" reached the top of Amazon.com's "Movers and Shakers" list. What Work Is What Work Is is a collection of poetry by Philip Levine. The collection has many themes that are representative of Levine's writing including physical labor, class identity, family relationships and personal loss. Its primary focus on work and the working class led to it being studied with emphasis on Marxist literary criticism. The focus on work is expressed in thematically different ways throughout the collection.