I enjoyed this poem a lot. The tone seems to be bitter and critical, like the reader is 15 feet tall,
looking down through the glasses on the tip of his nose at the people on the street.
There isn't any rhyming at all, and it doesn't flow like most poems do. It doesn't seem to be a
poem at all until the very last line, where he ties all of the people's lives together in a way. He tells
individual stories about the 9 people he sees, each of them interesting by themselves, and then at the
end he addresses them as a whole.
The first sentence brings you deep into the poem immediately. "Much as he bears the burdens of
his life" really starts making you think about the personal life of the carpenter, and all of the other
characters in the story. It's obvious from the beginning that Steven doesn't just want you thinking about
what the people are doing, but who they really are.
My favorite section would probably have to be the lines about the little girl. I like the imagery of
her spanking her red ball, telling to behave. I wonder if maybe her parents spank her, and perhaps she is
imitating them.
The insight of the poem is in the last 2 paragraphs. The people just go about their lives without
noticing one another. they are so busy thinking about themselves that they never see each other. I have
been to Chicago a few times and I would agree that in the city, everyone seems so involved with
themselves and their own lives that they can barely see what's right in front of them-- two inches in
front of their face, even!
Also, the art piece is a perfect accompaniment to the poem. I pictured the scene almost exactly as
it is shown in the picture.
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