Also, only people above the working class could afford books so poetry was a form of literature written and available only to the rich. How does this relate to the writing techniques poets use when writing about work or work-related issues? Clearly there is a reason. Since the working class would have had to work very hard for work themes to be taken seriously within the bourgeois literary world, they would need to validate their literary worth and merit. Working class poets have achieved this by showing that they are as competent as writers as anybody else and that work can also be a legitimate theme in poetry. Now one can examine how the poet utilizes alliteration, metaphor, and onomatopoeia within their poems to communicate work and work-related issues as the central themes.
"Days: Construction" by Tom Wayman.
Wayman uses language well in this poem to express the urgency, harshness of working in construction. Notice in the first stanza, the sentences are longer and most words contain long vowel sounds. This creates a soothing and melodic mood. But in the nest two stanzas the sentences become very terse, almost like punctuations. "and then bed. Night." This forces the reader to read faster which creates the feeling a sense of urgency in the poem which would mimic the feeling of urgency to get the job done a construction work feels. Wayman intentionally contrasts the languid tone of the first stanza with the rushed tone of the second. Wayman does this by avoiding using long vowel sounds in the second and third stanzas. There are more hard consonant sounds like "blow by blow", "tugged free", and "spike". This makes the second stanza sound much harsher than the second. The harshness in the poem reflects the harsh atmosphere of a construction site where everything is angular and hard, unbending. Wayman uses many good examples of onomatopoeia in the second and third stanzas: "blasted", "creaks", "pound", "ring" and "blow".