Drinking with the Second Shift by Robert Collins is a collection of poetry that chronicles the coming of age of a white, suburban, middleclass young man working his ¿first real job¿ in an industrial bakery during summers to pay his way through college. In poems that are narrative and dramatic in form, the book explores questions of race and class and the meaning of labor, especially work that can be menial and degrading but that also has its rewards for the person whose persistence pays off in ways far more beneficial than monetary. Interweaving metaphors of baseball, the military, the penal system, and dance and set against the backdrop of the 1960¿s, the poems convey the agony and occasional delight the protagonist experiences and describe the education he receives as he matures over the course of four summers and prepares for struggles to come once he graduates and leaves the bakery behind.