Ice Handler
Ice Handler - context Summary
Published in Chicago Poems
Published in 1916's Chicago Poems, this short portrait presents a working-class ice handler in unsentimental, plain language. Sandburg sketches the man’s physical labor, blunt speech, weekend spending and violent defense of the union, mixing small domestic detail with acts of solidarity and rough humor. The poem situates the individual within an industrial, urban milieu, emphasizing bodily work, camaraderie, and the gritty dignity of a laboring life.
Read Complete AnalysesI know an ice handler who wears a flannel shirt with pearl buttons the size of a dollar, And he lugs a hundred-pound hunk into a saloon ice- box, helps himself to cold ham and rye bread, Tells the bartender it's hotter than yesterday and will be hotter yet to-morrow, by Jesus, And is on his way with his head in the air and a hard pair of fists. He spends a dollar or so every Saturday night on a two hundred pound woman who washes dishes in the Hotel Morrison. He remembers when the union was organized he broke the noses of two scabs and loosened the nuts so the wheels came off six different wagons one morning, and he came around and watched the ice melt in the street. All he was sorry for was one of the scabs bit him on the knuckles of the right hand so they bled when he came around to the saloon to tell the boys about it.
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