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Customer Reviews (7)

The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg
Nicely bound.Really does have all of his poems.Good paper quality.Very satisfied.

Good stuff
I read some stuff by Carl Sandburg when I was in high school, but now that I am considering writing as more of an art form I wanted to delve more into poetry, and this book is definately a great collection of one of America's greatest poets

Beautiful and strange observations of Americana
I am a big fan of Sandburg. This is the most complete collection of his works that I have seen. His poetry is so full of strength and hope. Nothing is too frilly but still very beautiful. His poetry always reminds me of the verbal equivalent of a piece of art by Norman Rockwell - true down to the dirt on the skin but so full of awe and respect for his subject. Have a wonderful time reading this collection!

Poetry Of A Fierce But Gentle Soul
Fifty years ago Carl Sandburg's poetry could be found in nearly every library, classroom and (in some form) home in America, but in the hurried twenty-first century, where too much bad poetry has spoiled whole living generations on the art, he is all-but lost to our social consciousness. This poet of freedom (even his poems disobey every respected rule of form) penned verses that celebrated the American spirit as no other writer had since Walt Whitman. If presented with a sampling of his most famous lines, the average American would probably light up and say, "Oh, yeah! Okay, I've heard that one." Reading the collected works of this Midwesterner is full of such moments of re-discovery. All of Sandburg's published books are here, putting his many hundreds of poems on display. His finest work, the controversial, slow-moving, stream of consciousness piece "The People, Yes" alone makes this anthology a gift to modern readers, but many other unexpected gems await to delight, challenge, inform, or taunt with sheer irony. Though some of these poems date back nearly a century, at no time does Sandburg ever sound anything but cutting-edge and post-modern. He is one of the greats for all ages of man.

Tell me if the lovers are the losers
For me Sandburg is the poet of 'immortal lines' gleaned from anthologies. " The cat comes in on little cloud's feet' " Tell me if the lovers are the losers in the tombs, the cool tombs" " Chicago, beefhandler, wheat- stacker of the nation" Sandburg writes clearly and some might say is poetry is just prose chopped up into lines, but he has a strength and a humane sense that I find admirable. He is not given today the attention I believe he deserves. An inspiring poet who should be read more than he is. ... Read more

Book Description
With the publication of Chicago Poems in 1916, Carl Sandburg became one of the most famous poets in America: the voice of a midwestern literary revolt, fusing free-verse poetics with hard-edged journalistic observation and energetic, sometimes raucous protest. By the time his first book appeared, Sandburg had been many things--a farm hand, a soldier in the Spanish-American War, an active Socialist, a newspaper reporter and movie reviewer-and he was determined to write poetry that would explode the genteel conventions of contemporary verse. His poems are populated by factory workers, washerwomen, crooked politicians, hobos, vaudeville dancers, and battle-scarred radicals. Writing from the bottom up, bringing to his poetry the immediacy of America's streets and prairies, factories and jails, Sandburg forged a distinctive style at once lyrical and vernacular, by turns angry, gritty, funny, and tender. Paul Berman takes a fresh look at Sandburg's work and what it can tell us about 20th-century America in a volume that draws on such volumes as Cornhuskers, Smoke and Steel, and Slabs of the Sunburnt West. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

WONDERFUL LITTLE VOLUME.
Like other offerings in this series from the American Poets Project, this one hits the mark.Craig Matteson has already given us a wonderful reivew of this book here, so I will certainly not cover the same ground. From a personal point of view though, Sandburg has always been one of my favorite poets.I am rather a simple person and his style and subject matter fit my needs perfectly.As Matteson has pointed out, poetry must be read slowly and often to be truely enjoyed.Several of my favorites are published in this small volume, which includes "Billy Sunday," and "White Ash."It just does not get much better than that.I did enjoy the introduction by Paul Berman, the editor.He gives us a brief publishing history and discusses the Sanburg Pound link, which I found fascinating for some reason.All in all, this and other offerings from the American Poets Project are a good thing and well worth adding to your collection.We should all be grateful.

A fine selection by works of one of the great poets of the Midwest
Carl Sandburg had a long career that had a kind of kaleidoscopic transformation over its many decades.His best regarded poems come from the teens and twenties of the last century.His imagery was that of the Midwest with its plains, farms, and the booming industry and rising skyscrapers of Chicago.

Almost no one younger than fifty can remember how popular he was.He won a Pulitzer Prize for his final four volumes of the six volume biography of Lincoln in 1940.This massive biography is an apt example of Sandburg's changing career.The ordinary folks loved it, and once they did the sophisticates and scholars couldn't demean it enough, but this rejection came later.He won a second Pulitzer for his collected poems in "The Complete Poems" in 1951.The radio loved his old fashioned style of reading poetry almost as a song and later he added a guitar to his readings and was popular on TV.

His brand of American Nationalism grew less popular in the mid-1960s and after he died in mid-1967, the rabid anti-War movement rejected all such patriotism as a kind of jingoism that was not acceptable to the young.Sandburg's reputation faded from that time.He is still fondly remembered by many, but not a cultural icon as he once was.

In his younger years he was a socialist, such as American Socialism was in those early years of the last century.He helped organize workers, worked at socialist publications where many of his poems appeared.However, as the socialist movement became more radical, he did not go with them.The common man and woman with their ordinary lives of work, toil, hopes, suffering, entertainments, loves, violence, and their massive and anonymous contribution to our nation's wealth and social order were his focus and his muse.

This wonderful volume contains selections from those volumes focuses on those early decades.Some of the poems I find magical and they still retain much power."Skyscraper" (pg 19) seems one of the finer poems to me.Of course, there the famous - almost brand name - poems such as "Chicago" with its "Hog Butcher for the World" and "City of the Big Shoulders". And the not always well received "The People, Yes!"

He also has poems as a kind of epitaph for the famous of his day that had passed.You will probably need to search the web for the names to know who many of them were.Remember, when he wrote these poems, they were commenting on contemporary society.For us, it is a passed age.Nothing ages faster than the modern.A few of the poems are almost like haiku (I wonder if it was deliberate) and one sounds almost Nietzschean."The Hammer" from 1910 on pg 132 could have come from the pages of "Twilight of the Idols".

Poems take time to read, so even a slim volume such as this requires some time.Not because it is hard to read, or because you can't zip through it, but because poems require time to resonate.The whole point is less to tell you something from the outside as a technical manual would, but to use the words and images in the poem to resonate with what is in you.It is the resonance and the kinds of emotional harmonics it sounds out in you that create the music of the poem and from which it derives its power and worth to generations.Works of art, especially the great works, are really not available for people to judge them in terms of final worth.Rather, the works of art judge us by how we judge them.What we are able to find in ourselves as we engage the work helps us see what it is we have within us, or what we lack.

The volume begins with a fine essay on Sandburg by the editor, Paul Berman.Rather than compare Sandburg with Robert Frost (the two seem paired by fate and are often confused), he spends his time showing the connection and contrast between Sandburg and Ezra Pound.After the poems there is a short biographical note and a note on the text.

Recommended.This volume is yet another example of why we owe the great Library of America our support and gratitude. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (7)

A joy to read
Sandburg took criticism for filling in some blanks with his imagination, but so what?His biography of Lincoln was not intended as a scholarly treatise.Think of the mystic atmosphere of a campfire at night, with an elder telling about the greatest person in a tribe's history.That is Sandburg's accomplishment, making Lincoln live again among us, at least while we are surrounded by Sandburg's mesmerizing account.No one interested in Lincoln or in the meaning of America should miss the experience of these volumes.

A lyrical, poetic biography of Lincoln
This is a biography of Lincoln by the esteemed poet Carl Sandburg.I was born just up the road, US Route 34 (in Kewanee), from his home town of Galesburg, Illinois.Thus, I have always had a soft spot for this version of Lincoln's life

As a poet, Sandburg's version tends to be more epic and mythical--and less critical--in its examination of Lincoln.For all of that, the book still works well.The first part, "The Prairie Years," recounts Lincoln's youth and early career before he attained the presidency.The story, of course, starts with his family settling in Kentucky, where Lincoln was born in 1809.Later, he moved with his family to Illinois.Lincoln began in New Salem and later moved to Springfield.Sandburg's depiction of his development, to becoming a practiced attorney, his political ambitions, his brief time in the militia, lays out the standard treatment of Lincoln, written extraordinarily well.Many anecdotes dot the volume.We see his doomed relationship with Ann Rutledge and his rocky courtship of Mary Todd.The discussion of his famous debates with Stephen Douglas in the Senate Campaign that brought him national visibility (and rendered him viable as a potential presidential candidate) is well told.

Then, the work goes on to explore his place in the Civil War.The volume speak poignantly of the family tragedy that he experienced (the death of a child is always difficult), the strained relationship with his wife, the challenges of orchestrating the Union's war effort.

In a sense, this is a poetic, lyric, romanticized view of Lincoln.It could scarcely be anything else, I think, given Sandburg's perspective.Nonetheless, for that, this is still a compelling work and worth a read.

A Poetic Life of Lincoln
Sandburg was a poet, and this is a poetic biography of Lincoln. Is that an asset or a liability? In today's climate of "facts, facts, facts," most would probably say the latter. But, in this instance, I would disagree. There are occasions when great poets hit, with their prose, closer to the mark than the historians. It's like the story of the spirit of one of the Russian aristocrats going through the history books and saying, "My secret is safe." Then he reads Tolstoy's War and Peace and shakes his ghostly fist, crying, "How did he know?" This is a great work by a great writer--and lest I give the wrong impression, there are a great many facts in this book. It's one of the most well-researched historical biographies ever written. But if you are looking for more than a biography of Lincoln, if you are looking to be transported, then this is the book for you.

Richard Salva--author of Soul Journey from Lincoln to Lindbergh [UNABRIDGED]

Worth Reading
For anyone that has an interest in American History and enjoys Biographies, this book is worth reading.Carl Sandburg is an excellent writer and sprinkles anecdotes from people who knew Lincoln to really add reality to this reading.
Lincoln was a fascinating person who led the US in a critical time in its history.This book captures what he was like and reinforces why he is so revered in this country.

A bit too impressionistic
This biography is a must-read simply because it is by Sandburg and thus a thread of the national literary fabric. However, Sandburg tends to fictionalize or fill in the blanks of Lincoln's boyhood to the point where it sometimes becomes embarrassing. The narrative picks up speed and credibility, however, when it gets to the documented period of Lincoln's life; and ironically, the folksiness now works in its favor by evoking a very human and real portrait of Lincoln, unlike the current revisionist history drivel about his being gay, manic-depressive, or pro-slavery. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Great Intro to Sandburg
If I were teaching Sandburg, i would use this collection as my text.

The introduction is concise, yet informative, giving some quick context to the life and ideas behind the poems.

Keeping in mind this is a selectedworks, and not a complete works, think of this as a "best of"edition.

Organized by ideas: * Chicago * Images * Poems of Protest *Love Poems * Lincoln * Anti-War and War Poems * Portraits *African-Americans * Poet of the People * Musings * Poetry Definitions.

Byorganizing them idealogically, it helps the reader becoming familiar withSandburg as a primer. You can see his clear cynicism of religion and ofreligious people, and of his socialistic leanings (he is direct about thesethoughts). His "Billy Sunday" is an intriguing look at a man whowas just a man, yet spoke about Christ. Though Sandburg was known to beatheistic, it could be argued he had more spiritual thoughts.

You canread his sense of empathy and unity with the common man. Any urban dwellerwill hum in agreement to so much of his Chicago poems.

Sandburg's senseof rural beauty comes out, as does his pure admiration of Lincoln.Well-said is his recollection of the sinking of the Eastland (a boat whichsunk in the Chicago River)... or, rather, his thoughts of how so manypeople died, and how many might've died.

I could go poem by poem, but thefact remains that Sandburg's style impacts poets today, from the Beats toMaya Angelou, to Gwendolyn Brooks.

I fully recommend this book.

AnthonyTrendl

great poet
Sandburg was a superb poet. he speaks in such a raw voice, that the poems cannot help but to reach out and touch you, whether he writes about love, injustice, protest, war, chicago or any other subject. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

ANOTHER ONE FOR YOUR CHILD'S LIBRARY - ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTFUL
This is another addition to one of the best literary projects to come along in quite some time...Poetry for Young People.This particular work of course deals with the works of Carl Sandburg.It is illustrated by Steven Arcella.The book, as with the others in this series, starts with an introduction to the poet.This is good stuff alone.It is good to know something about the author of the work you are reading, and children, probably more so than adults, need this information.This volume includes Sandburg's Fog, From the Shore, Young Sea, Last Answers, A Sphinx, Little Girl.. Be Careful What You Say, Margaret, Arithmetic, Plowboy, Monotone, Phizzog, Mask, Summer Grass, Summer Stars, Sky Talk, October Paint, Old Woman, Buffalo Dust, a Coin and Doors.I certainly am not going to remark on the quality of Sandburg's work.Those who read him will be well aware of this.This collection though, is upbeat, delightful and gives a pretty good view of the poet's range.

The art work which accompanies the poems is very appealing and relaxing and very well executed.Like the poetry, it has a dream like quality and is a delight.

This is a book which is perfect to read to your child or to an entire class.Poetry has fallen out of fashion in many of our schools now, which is not only a shame, but I feel almost a crime.Our kids are missing so very, very much.This little edition is an ideal start. It, and the rest of this series, should be in ever school library, in every class room and indeed, on your kid's book shelf.I do highly recommend this one.

Don Blankenship

Carl Sundburgs (Poetry For Young People)
I love this book. It I so up beat and moving.I find this book moving far into the future of young peope and i hope to see it on my childs desk. ... Read more

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Biography of the Civil War president in three volumes by Carl Sandburg. I think this is considered to be the optimum biography of this person. ... Read more

Book Description
When Illinois-born Carl Sandburg was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1951, it was the crowning achievement of his nearly half century career as a poet.At the time he was one of America's most popular living poets. His work embodied the American experience and spoke deeply to the hearts of the very people who inspired his greatest poems. For them, Sandburg symbolized America's innate integrity and boundless promise.
This volume contains the poems upon which Sandburg built his reputation and career.The four poems selected from his rarely reprinted first collection, In Reckless Ecstasy, provide a fascinating glimpse into his developing talent.They show him slowly breaking free of traditional verse forms toward his own voice.
This book features a deluxe cover, ribbon marker, top stain, and decorative endpapers with nameplates. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A few memorable much anthologized poems
The Sandburg I know is the Sandburg of 'Chicago' and 'The fog comes in on little cat's feet' and above all " Tell me if the lovers are the losers, in the tombs, in the cool tombs'
Memorable lines from the antholgies , a small selection of a lifetime of writing.
... Read more

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Stays with you
In 5th grade, we had to choose a poem to recite from a book ofthe teachers choice.I was given this book, and fell in love with it.'Grass' is haunting, and subtle word play makes every read seem like the first time. ... Read more

Book Description
Sandburg was not only a poet but also a noted collector and performer of american folk music. This anthology contains words and music to 290 songs that people have sung in the making of americanca. New Introduction by Garrison Keillor; Prefatory Notes by the Author; Index. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Bedrock of American folk singing
Back in the early 1960s when I was a high schooler getting into music, I took this book out of the library and took this book out of the library, and took this book out of the library.

People trying to find great folk songs with both wit and wonder and laughter, heart ache and beauty probably have been doing this since Sandburg published this book in the 1920s.Being so familiar with this book, back in the day, and still today, I can identify different folk singers who have a repertoire of traditional songs by the ones who like myself studied this book and learned to play its songs, and those who had learned from the Lomax Collections, though in all the big Lomax books, there were credits to the inspiration and work Sanburg put into this book, as well as songs taken from this book.

Sanburg wasn't a folklorist, but a poet and someone who liked to sing these songs and play the guitar. He includes a few songs that aren't folk by any description like the very funny "Horse Named Bill" written by a friend of Sandburg's named Sinclair Lewis whom you might heard of!

The legions of folkies who once had only this book and the Lomax collections have spewed forth generations of serious scholars of folk music in this country and the world. Specialized monographs can be found on Kentucky fiddling or the musics of Mali, on down picking banjo, and Black song before the blues.With the specialization that has developed over the decades, few would even attempt to write one book and call it the American Songbag.

Especially if you like to sing and play, this book will take you back to an easier time, with some good songs.You will be surprised at how many of them you know the tune to, even if you can't read the music!

Literature? Folk Song Anthology? Both!
An absolute classic of American arts and letters, the "Songbag" has been cited by traditional musicians including Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan. It's a primary source of American cultural heritage.

Sucking Cider Through A Straw
Compiled with difficulty and a lot of elbow grease during the years when American master Carl Sandburg was also writing Rootabaga Stories, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and poetry volume Slabs Of The Sunburnt West, The American Songbag is one of the many valuable gifts Sandburg produced for the American people.A collection of 290 "songs, ballads, and ditties," each entry consists of the extended lyrics and "complete harmonizations or piano accompaniments."

These folk songs are grouped under loose headings such as 'Dreams And Portraits,' 'Pioneer Memories,' 'The Big Brutal City,' 'Picnic and Hayrack Follies, Close Harmony, and Darn Fool Ditties,' 'The Great Open Spaces,' 'Hobo Songs,' and 'Tarnished Love Tales And Revolutionary Antiques,' and 'Mexican Border Songs' among others.

Many, understandably, have a British origin - 'The Foggy Dew,' 'Barbara Allen,' 'As I Was Walkin' Down Wexford Street,' 'Pretty Polly,' and 'The House Carpenter' - while the origin of others, like 'The E-RI-E,''The Ballad Of De Boll Weevil,' and 'The Buffalo Skinners' seem to be distinctly American. 'Turkey In The Straw,' however, like "When The Curtains Of Night Are Pinned Back,' is a "classical American rural tune," and "as American as Andrew Jackson, Johnny Appleseed, and Corn-on-the-Cob." Sandburg provides a brief introduction to each song, many of which are informative, while others are humorous and so idiosyncratic that each only muddies the waters of clarity if taken at face value.American music lovers may believe that 'Shenandoah' is a wholly American creation, but Sandburg sensibly suggests that the original may have referred to the name of a foreign ship or an Indian chief, rather than to 'the Historic Virginia valley.' 'She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain" was adapted by mountaineers from the "old-time negro spiritual" 'When The Chariot Comes.' 'The John B. Sails' has its origin in the West Indies.Sandburg seems to be underscoring the fact that most songs, like most people, come from somewhere else; origins are often hazy and partially a result of wishful thinking.

Musicians, educators, and youth leaders should have special interest in this book, which is as pure a piece of Americana as Duncan Emrich's Folklore On The American Land.The American Songbag will also thrill lovers of Americana and those searching for a legitimate, productive, and useful avenue into our country's history.Highly recommended for all audiences.

...a grain of salt
I purchased this book partly [because of what others ere saying.]The lyrics of the obscure selections from American popular music are of some value but the arrangements of the music and the tune transcriptions are terrible.This is not a book to buy if you are looking for music.

A Treasure
Sandburg's American Songbag is a national treasure. I suppose the words and music of these 280 songs, ballads, and ditties that people have sung forever could be found elsewhere, but where? This important work, whichbreathes life back into some of the most memorable old songs, wasoriginally published in 1927. ... Read more

Book Description
Carl Sandburg's The American Songbag recordings from May 27, 1952 to June 13, 1953, took place at informal gatherings of kindred souls like the Classical Guitar Society in New York City. Covering 350 years of American history, Remembrance Rock is quite possibly the last unblushing love-of-country novel of the century. ... Read more

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I CRIED over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts. The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.Download Description
I CRIED over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts. The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

"The Old Things Go, Not One Lasts"
The single edition of Cornhuskers (1918) is further evidence that Carl Sandburg's work is best served by The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, the most recent edition of which was published in 2003.

While the propagandistic Chicago Poems (1916) focused mainly on the plight of the urban poor, Cornhuskers, as its title suggests, is largely a meditation on the life and experience of the prairie farmer during the first quarter of the 20th century. Sandburg was a poet who seemed to find personal meaning largely in the present moment, and thus, while Cornhuskers records and occasionally celebrates the agricultural year and the people who live by it, death, mortality, and the transience of all things is a continuous motif. These themes intermingle freely with a honest, often blunt candor about the violence and sacrifice inherent in survival. The everyman farmer addressed in 'Prairie,' for example, is calmly advised by nature to "Kill your hogs with a knife slit under the ear. Hack them with cleavers. Hang them with hooks in the hind legs." Nor does the poet ignore the savagery of man and all creatures. 'Wilderness' acknowledges that "There is a wolf in me...fangs pointed for tearing gashes...a red tongue for raw meat...and the hot lapping of blood...I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness."

Sandburg was a poet of observation, and those reflected in Cornhuskers are almost continually pensive: sorrow, loneliness, unfulfilled longing, and human isolation color the Midwestern landscape. "The gloaming is bitter," he states in 'Sunset From Omaha Hotel Window,' not only in Omaha, but "in Chicago or Kenosha." Sleeping dogs dream "Not any hate, not any love, not anything but dreams" in 'Three Pieces on the Smoke of Autumn,' unlike man. The tradesman of 'Bricklayer Love'says, "I have thought of killing myself because I am only a bricklayer and you a woman who loves the man who runs a drug store." The speaker in 'Testament' serenely consigns his corpse to the earth, where the "nanny goats and billy goats of the shanty people eat the clover over my grave," for "I have had my chance to live with the people who have too much and the people who have too little and I chose one of the two and I have told no man why." The poet of 'In Tall Grass' offers his bleached skull to the bees so that they may use it to build a honeycomb. 'Cool Tombs' addresses the marginality of human accomplishment and celebrity in the face of mortality, whether for Abraham Lincoln, Ulyyses Grant, Pocahontas, or "any streetful of people." In 'Prairie,' Sandburg observes "the past is a bucket of ashes." In one of Cornhuskers most famous entries, 'Grass,' humanity is reminded that everyone and everything are impermanent and eventually forgotten: "I am the grass; I cover all."

As in Chicago Poems, politicians, the wealthy, the upper classes, and other leaders of society come in for repeated harsh criticism. "Huntington" in 'Southern Pacific,' though dead in "a house six feet long," still blithely dreams of men addressing him as "Yes, sir." 'Palladiums' warns "Speak softly--the sacred cows may hear. Speak easy--the sacred cows must be fed." 'Profiteer' describes an honorary statue erected to "one who participated in the war vicariously and bought ten farms" with his spoils. Cornhuskers was written during World War I, and 'The Four Brothers' identifies the "four big brothers" of the title--France, Russia, Britain, and America--as "hunting death."

In the vision of Cornhuskers, man's meager hope arises from routine hard work, appreciation of the simple and the commonplace, and acceptance of the cycle of life. 'Caboose Thoughts' states "The sun, the birds, the grass - they know. They get along. We'll get along. It's going to come out all right - do you know?" Sandburg encourages the reader to "Look at six eggs in a mockingbird's nest...look at songs hidden in eggs," and to appreciate, as he has, boys running "barefoot in the leaves" and "farmhands with their faces in fried catfish on a Monday morning."

Throughout, Sandburg speaks in the loose, conversational folk tone that was the hallmark of his work. Most of the poems have only a very light structure and appear spontaneously written, so that 'Potato Blossom Songs and Jigs' features lines such as "The story lags. The story has no connections. The story is nothing but a lot of banjo plinka planka plunks." Cornhuskers can stand on its own, but works best when considered in immediate conjunction with later volumes Smoke And Steel (1920), Slabs of the Sunburnt West (1922), Good Morning, America (1928), and The People, Yes (1936), making The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg the ideal vehicle for expressing his increasingly unappreciated vision.

A triumph by one of Whitman's great heirs
"Cornhuskers," a volume of poetry by Carl Sandburg, was first published in 1918. This book demonstrates a poetic style and subject matter that are very much like that of 19th century giant Walt Whitman; is fact, Whitman is even mentioned in one of the poems in this book (specifically, "Interior").

Sandburg writes in a direct, vernacular language. He demonstrates an appreciation of the lands, people, and animals of the United States. He pays particular attention to working class life, industrialization, and ethnic diversity. A series of poems deal with American wars from the Revolutionary War to World War I. Throughout, Sandburg's voice is at times ironic, mystical, ecstatic, and/or tender.

There are a number of particularly memorable selections in "Cornhuskers." I loved "Wilderness," which begins "There is a wolf in me." "Prayers of Steel" uses remarkable erotic language to explore the use of steel in America's development. Another impressive poem is "Alix," about a champion racing mare.

Sandburg writes, "I speak of new cities and new people." In "Cornhuskers," he created one of the first great poetic testaments of the 20th century. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (11)

A classic.
I love the Dover Trift Editions.They're a bit flimsy, but for the price, they can't be beat.Carl Sandburg's poems paint a colorful, often exiting, and always memoramble picture of city life at the turn of the century.These poems are simple, honest,and without a drop of pretention.This is a good read for anyone, not just poetry fanatics; but don't take my word for it, check it out at your local library.

I sing of Chicago glad and big The people 'Yes'
Sandburg is direct and strong and clear. This collection of poems first published in 1916 has as its signature poem "Chicago''. Chicago, the toolmaker, meat butcher, stacker of wheat the great brawler of the cities is at once Sandburg's home and posture to the world. Sandburg can also write tenderly as of the famous "Fog" that comes in on 'little cats feet' and with moving power of love ( Tell me in the grave, if the lovers are the losers) and war( Shovel them high at Ypres... I am the dust I cover them all) .
He is a poet of the American experience, the American street and its people . And he is like the beloved Lincoln he would write a long biography of, a man of the people whose poetry is truly for the people.
The People Yes.

The People, Yes
Sadly, Chicago Poems (1916), the author's first published work, is the book for which self-styled folk poet Carl Sandburg is best remembered today. The collection takes a hard and unswerving look at the grim realities of urban life for the common man, funneled through the flume of the author's committed socialist ideological perspective. Such an approach to poetry may have been somewhat novel in the America of the time, and both history and critics have been kind to Sandburg's sympathetic portraits of human suffering.

But whether he is addressing "a dago shovelman," an immigrant who has forgotten the dignified being his ancestors in Europe or who can no longer recognize "the new-mown hay smell calling on the wind," a street walker with "haggard poems and desperate eyes," or a young woman burned to death in a factory fire, Sandburg continually adopts the simplistic notion that the lower economic strata of society is always victimized but virtuous, while governmental institutions, bosses of all stripes, the professional classes, and the wealthy are uniformly cruel, oppressive, exploitive, and, at best, indifferent.

Thus, Chicago Poems reads like a 132-page polemic with a very narrow political point of view. While many of the author's observations are poignantly insightful (such as the poverty-stricken family of a dead boy in 'The Right To Grief,' who are "glad it is gone, for the rest of the family will now have more to eat and wear"), the poems, when read together, take on an oppressively unbalanced character of their own.

In 'A Fence,' for example, "the rabble and all vagabonds and hungry men and wandering children looking for a place to play" stand outside the gates of a newly constructed "stone house on the lake front" built by a wealthy man, who, the poet infers, can be nothing but immoral, amoral, or corrupt. In the author's Usher-esque vision, nothing will be able to pass through the gates to the property except "Death and the Rain and Tomorrow." And tomorrow, for such a corrupt individual or family, will inevitably bring nothing but waves of bad conscience and fevered isolation. 'Soiled Dove' examines the life of a woman who "was not a harlot until she married a corporation lawyer," but who automatically becomes one by acquiescing to such a marriage, and who soon discovers her husband also loves "six other women," as if marital infidelity was limited exclusively to the upper economic classes. In contrast, 'Happiness' is confidently represented as "a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with their women and children and a keg of beer and an accordion," an image which may seem simultaneously naïve, patronizing, and condescending to many readers.

Occasionally, Sandburg wisely acknowledges that some portion of the tragedies of man's existence are simply inherent in the natural human life cycle. "The hand of God" also comes in for blame in several poems.

Chicago Poems is most effective when Sandburg bypasses social divisionalism--as he often did in his later volumes of poetry--and simply addresses the everyman in the individual. While these poems are often infused with a lyrical and tender sentimentality slightly reminiscent of James Whitcomb Riley, they also locate and acknowledge the beautiful within the tragedies that perpetually arise from human frailty, vulnerability, and mortality. In 'Dream In The Dusk,' the author warns that "tears and loss and broken dreams may find your heart at dusk," while 'Under The Harvest Moon' identifies "Death" as "the gray mocker, [who] comes to you as a beautiful friend who remembers." 'I Sang' describes a lover who has given up his heart to "you and the moon," but "only the moon remembers, and is kind to me."

Other poems have the more pronounced folk character of Sandburg's later volumes. The speaker in 'Theme In Yellow' is the pumpkin, who celebrates the paganistic dance of children around him "on the last day of October...singing ghost songs and love to the harvest moon...I am the jack-o-lantern with terrible teeth and the children know I am fooling."

The most recent edition of The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (2003), which contains Chicago Poems in its entirety, is 832 pages long, and provides its readership with the full range of Sandburg's original and often gloriously rich and sensual vision of life. It also contains works like 'At The Gates of Tombs,' from Slabs of the Sunburnt West (1922), in which Sandburg, "the crazy wild dreamer," more fully and maturely developed his political vision. Comparatively, the reductive, often despairing Chicago Poems reads like the immaturely polarized work that it is.

Beyond the familiar cliches, an apt & modern collection
A few weeks after September 11 2001, I came across the poem "Skyscraper" by Sandburg by chance in a huge volume of American poetry. In the millions of lines written about that horrible day, I found his words from 70 years ago to be the most moving. Here are some lines from that poem:

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BY day the skyscraper looms in the smoke and sun and has a soul.
Prairie and valley, streets of the city, pour people into it and they mingle among its twenty floors and are poured out again back to the streets, prairies and valleys.
It is the men and women, boys and girls so poured in and out all day that give the building a soul of dreams and thoughts and memories...

Hour by hour the caissons reach down to the rock of the earth and hold the building to a turning planet.
Hour by hour the girders play as ribs and reach out and hold together the stone walls and floors....

Men who sunk the pilings and mixed the mortar are laid in graves where the wind whistles a wild song without words
And so are men who strung the wires and fixed the pipes and tubes and those who saw it rise floor by floor.
Souls of them all are here, even the hod carrier begging at back doors hundreds of miles away and the brick-layer who went to state's prison for shooting another man while drunk...

Ten-dollar-a-week stenographers take letters from corporation officers, lawyers, efficiency engineers, and tons of letters go bundled from the building to all ends of the earth.
Smiles and tears of each office girl go into the soul of the building just the same as the master-men who rule the building.

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I have never studied Sandburg, but it seems to me he shares that same love of humanity and fairness that Walt Whitman was so famous for, along with the ability to craft lines as amazing as "hold the building to a turning planet". His love of his modern city seems like a remnant from another age, but his absolute belief in class equality is as relevant as any 2001 street protest.

A Charming Collection
Wonderful and authentic, a great collection for any Sandburg devotee or any patriotic Chicagoan. I was a little disappointed with the actual quality of the book, binding and covers, but it is not an expensive edition and the collection is priceless. A must read! ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (11)

Interesting, but very strange
My wife and I love and highly recommend Carl Sandburg's other book "The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle".This is a picture book that is very funny, and was one of her favorite books growing up as a kid.

Rootabaga stories doesn't have any pictures, and is a bit strange.Don't get me wrong, the author is brilliant and the writing is interesting, but it wasn't a fun kid's book like we were expecting.

Great stories for children
A Sandburg classic - for children.Best read out loud.A collection of very short stories. A quick read.Fun.Non-sensical fantasy.Though a bit dated, it is amazing how relevant most of these stories still feel.

The Best American Bedtime Stories!
If you have kids, if you are one yourself or if you have ever been one, you want this book.This is Sandburg at his wacky-best.It will have you all laughing.

Soothing, not boring
As a child, I found Sandburg's Rootabaga Stories quite odd and rather difficult to read to myself beyond the first few stories. Yet as an adult, I think they are the best read-aloud bedtime stories around. The characters and plots are off-kilter enough to be engaging, yet the pace of the stories is calm and gently repetitive.

For A Childhood of Broad Shoulders
Carl Sandburg's *Rootabaga Stories* (once collected in a rather hefty volume, now available serially as they were originally released) are well-enough known that many may find it puzzling that these stories -- which seemed so wonderful to them as children -- are not more widely read and spoken of.I certainly do: but I wonder if the salient quality of the *Rootabagas*, the "vividness" emphasized by Maud and Miska Petersham's clean-line expressionist illustrations, make them something of the juvenile counterpart to Sandburg's multi-volume biography of Lincoln (a memento of an American past not fondly remembered by many).In other words, we might perhaps conjecture (quietly if necessary) that these stories were intended to 'equilibrate' children in an industrialized present, something like Walter Benjamin's cinema, and that the flavor of the monumental (which intimated to the post-war reader that they were in the presence of greatness) may not be to the taste of those not prepared to shoulder the burden of social control.But for those of us with sympathy for Robert Capa and suchlike, it is pleasing that we have a new "friend" in Libros Viajeros, who are making this book available as the imposing lump it ought to be; and perhaps it is still the case, even in this era of shorter school hours and an unfriendlier public sphere, that every child ought to have a hardback book.If so, this would not be the worst one. ... Read more