Carl Sandburg

Street Window

Street Window - meaning Summary

Urban Objects as Testimony

"Street Window" presents a spare, empathetic portrait of people reduced to selling personal keepsakes. The pawn-shop items—rings, bracelets, watches, coins—stand for hunger, loss and the private histories that urban poverty erases. Sandburg compresses observation into plain, declarative lines that treat these objects as testimony, asking readers to see the human stories behind everyday commerce and social hardship.

Read Complete Analyses

The pawn-shop man knows hunger, And how far hunger has eaten the heart Of one who comes with an old keepsake. Here are wedding rings and baby bracelets, Scarf pins and shoe buckles, jeweled garters, Old-fashioned knives with inlaid handles, Watches of old gold and silver, Old coins worn with finger-marks. They tell stories.

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