The Shovel Man
The Shovel Man - context Summary
Published in Chicago Poems, 1916
Published in 1916 in Sandburg’s collection Chicago Poems, "The Shovel Man" exemplifies his early urban realist phase. The poem offers a brief, sympathetic portrait of an immigrant laborer seen on a city street, aligning with Sandburg’s interest in working-class life and American modernity. Its plain diction and specific details situate the subject within industrializing Chicago while projecting a compassionate imagination that links the man’s daily toil to hope and longing abroad.
Read Complete AnalysesOn the street Slung on his shoulder is a handle half way across, Tied in a big knot on the scoop of cast iron Are the overalls faded from sun and rain in the ditches; Spatter of dry clay sticking yellow on his left sleeve And a flimsy shirt open at the throat, I know him for a shovel man, A dago working for a dollar six bits a day And a dark-eyed woman in the old country dreams of him for one of the world's ready men with a pair of fresh lips and a kiss better than all the wild grapes that ever grew in Tuscany.
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