The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor

"The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor" by Wallace Irwin is a collection of funny poems from the turn of the century. Written around 1906 and 1907 this book of poems is about love, the things we must do, and the normal day of a railcar operator in a busy city. The book has funny social thoughts and romantic wants, showing a working man's point of view. William Henry Smith, the voice of the poems, is smitten with a rider named Pansy, he reveals his feelings through poems, joining love with funny times on the streetcar. As he thinks about his feelings, he tells stories of people like Gill the Gripman and Pansy’s unapproving mother, mixed in with thoughts on love, life, and money problems. The poems use slang and fun rhymes, the series catches the beat of city life and the real, but also comic, search for love while at work. The book presents the wishes and issues faced by the normal man.