I can't remember where I read this, and I'm pretty sure the author is unknown. It's probably Irish or English, possibly a hundred years old or a bit older. It's driving me crazy. I hope someone here knows it. It's about a labourer who becomes the foreman. He was once someone who cared about worker's rights and the labour movement, but after he is promoted to management, he no longer cares about workers' troubles. I spent an hour trying various google searches, but I can't find it!
Without knowing any more about it (and ignoring that you said it's probably an unknown poet) it could be Robert Frost or William Blake. I don't know why those names came to mind, but they did. And I'm sure it's neither one. But somebody needed to say something here.
I did a little less than an hour search, and it kept popping up "poems of the proletariat" or Filipino poetry. I know you said it's probably Irish or English, but is there a possibility it's a non-western poem? Edit: I also found an article about the "smelter workers poetry" from what I believe was originally in a newspaper designed for that. The article itself, however, was from a literary journal.
I'd try reddit r/tipofmytongue There are some poems by Edgar Guest that are similar, but they don't seem to have the unsatisfying ending.
Is it really unsatisfying though, or just from one particular perspective? In fact from the beginning perspective. It actually reminds me a lot of something JG Ballard and David Cronenberg do a lot—a story about transformation/growth that seems to be a terrifying monstrous change, until near the end when the person becomes whatever he was becoming, and now he sees it from the new perspective. ::Spoilers below for Dagon:: For instance that's the story of the movie version of Dagon (based mostly on Lovecraft's Shadow Over Innsmouth). I don't remember if the story ends similarly, but the movie is about a guy who discovers he's transforming inevitably into a monstrous fish-creature and is destined to marry and make the sweet love to his sister, a fish-monster princess. It's incredibly repulsive and nasty, but by the end he's more fish than human and—well, actually Jeff Goldblum put it pretty well toward the end of The Fly: "I'm saying I'm an insect who dreamed he was a man and loved it, but now that dream is over, and the insect is awake." Sure, from a human perspective it's awful, but he's no longer human. That's the point of transformation, you become something different. Who you were must die in order that you can become what you're becoming. It opens up your way of thinking to a broader perspective, through shocking nightmare body horror. I saw it happen to the best manager I ever had. She trained her crew to work together and to take pride in their work, and she was a really excellent leader. Until she reached her ultimate goal of becoming a district supervisor, at which point she became lazy and entitled and no longer cared about teamwork or pride. To us it seemed horrible, but I think she felt it was a great thing. And you have to understand, these guys aren't writing standard moral lesson stories—more like 'This is how life really is kids, live it and learn or be naive and get shocked at reality over and over again.'
Appreciate the replies! I still can't figure it out. I think it's going to gnaw at me for some time. I thought I might have read it from an article in a Substack subscription, but I just spent the last hour searching every article I've read for the keyword "foreman," which I am certain is in the poem. I know it's English, Irish, or perhaps even Scottish because of the style. I can't recall any exact line, but it at the end it might read something like "f- th' workin' man's woes." I don't think it could have been translated like that. I suppose I could try the reddit suggestion if I'm about to lose my mind over this. If it wasn't, as I believe, written anonymously, I imagine the name would have come to me by now. It was so good, but I was dumb and didn't bookmark it or copy it into my notes. Shame.
One day you'll run across it completely randomly while looking for something else. Or the poet's name will just appear in your head unbidden.
