"Mother to Son"

I love everything about this poem. I love its short lines, its conversational tone, its movement. The "stairs" metaphor has been done before, but Hughes makes it feel new. Maybe not even new, but richer. 
It's more than just an uphill battle; there are even more roadblocks, each with its own kind of hurt. The "tacks", "splinters", "bare" floorboards, etc. all represent to me a range of negative emotions and difficulties. Starting a new line for each of these roadblocks - "It had tacks in it,/And.../And.../And..." - emphasizes the persistence and depth of the mother's struggles. The short, chopped lines enhance the description of this struggle, dragging me through in a way that reflects the feelings conveyed - exasperation, weariness, pain. Especially for the one-word line: "Bare." The way that sounds, and even the way it looks on the page, abrupt and all alone, effectively portrays a kind of hopeless, resigned emptiness. 
But her tone isn't resigned at all. She acknowledges all of the resistance she's met along the way, but continues "a-climbin' on", moving forward, and she tells her son to do the same. I love the ending, because Hughes perfectly captures the tone of a loving parent. In the beginning it's a mixture of compassion and tough love, and at the end there's a touch of tenderness - "Don't you fall now --/For I'se still goin', honey". I think the whole thing's beautiful. It says a lot in a short space.