This website is dedicated to
Carl Sandburg - Chicago Poems
Carl
Sandburg was virtually unknown to the literary world
when, in 1914, a group of his poems appeared in the
nationally circulated Poetry magazine. Two years
later his book
Chicago Poems was published, and the
thirty-eight-year-old author found himself on the brink
of a career that would bring him international acclaim.
Carl Sandburg worked from the time he was a
young boy. He quit school following his graduation from eighth grade in
1891 and spent a decade working a variety of jobs. He delivered milk,
harvested ice, laid bricks, threshed wheat in Kansas, and shined shoes
in Galesburg's Union Hotel before traveling as a hobo in 1897.
Sandburg's experiences working and traveling greatly influenced his
writing and political views. He saw first-hand the sharp contrast
between rich and poor, a dichotomy that instilled in him a distrust of
capitalism.
SALVAGE
GUNS on the battle lines have pounded
now a year
between Brussels and Paris.
And, William Morris, when I read your old chapter on
the great arches and naves and little whimsical
corners of the Churches of Northern France--Brr-rr!
I'm glad you're a dead man, William Morris, I'm glad
you're down in the damp and mouldy, only a memory
instead of a living man--I'm glad you're gone.
You never lied to us, William Morris, you loved the
shape of those stones piled and carved for you to
dream over and wonder because workmen got joy
of life into them,
Workmen in aprons singing while they hammered, and
praying, and putting their songs and prayers into
the walls and roofs, the bastions and cornerstones
and gargoyles--all their children and kisses of
women and wheat and roses growing.
I say, William Morris, I'm glad you're gone, I'm glad
you're a dead man.
Guns on the battle lines have pounded a year now between
Brussels and Paris.
