Carl Sandburg

Harrison Street Court

Harrison Street Court - fact Summary

From Chicago Poems Collection

This short dramatic monologue appears in Sandburg's Chicago Poems and records an urban woman speaking in vernacular about the costs of sex work and exploitation. The poem compresses a single, bitter confession to capture the speaker's exhaustion and dispossession, exemplifying Sandburg's focus on working-class and marginalized voices in the city.

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I heard a woman's lips Speaking to a companion Say these words: "A woman what hustles Never keeps nothin' For all her hustlin'. Somebody always gets What she goes on the street for. If it ain't a pimp It's a bull what gets it. I been hustlin' now Till I ain't much good any more. I got nothin' to show for it. Some man got it all, Every night's hustlin' I ever did."

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