Proletarian Poet
Proletarian Poet - meaning Summary
Dignity of Small Pain
Williams presents a brief street scene that quietly honors a working-class woman. The poem focuses on an exact, mundane action—removing a paper insole to find a nail hurting her foot—to make visible ordinary pain and practical resilience. Its plain, direct images turn a small private moment into a portrait of laboring life, showing compassion through careful observation rather than rhetoric or sentiment.
Read Complete AnalysesA big young bareheaded woman in an apron Her hair slicked back standing on the street One stockinged foot toeing the sidewalk Her shoe in her hand. Looking intently into it She pulls out the paper insole to find the nail That has been hurting her
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