Pumpernickel Pumpernickel Pumpernickel (; ) is a typically heavy, slightly sweet rye bread traditionally made with sourdough starter and coarsely ground rye. It is often made today with a combination of rye flour and whole rye berries. At one time it was traditional peasant fare, but largely during the 20th century various forms became popular through delicatessens and supermarkets. Present-day European and North American pumpernickel differ in several characteristics, including the use of additional leaveners, and, in North America, coloring and flavoring agents, the addition of wheat flour, higher baking temperature, and a dramatically shortened baking time. The word stems from
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