Carl Sandburg Summary

Sandburg, Carl (1878-1967) A maverick son of Swedish immigrant parents, Carl Sandburg became one of America's best loved poets, as well as one of its most significant. However, he was also a jo... Read more

Biography EssayAmerican poet and biographer Carl Sandburg sketched a revealing portrait of himself in the preface to his Complete Poems (1950): "there was a puzzlement," he said, "as to whether I was... Read more

"Poetry," wrote Carl Sandburg in his Good Morning, America, "is a pack-sack of invisible keepsakes. Poetry is a sky dark with wild-duck migration. Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving ... Read more

American poet and biographer Carl Sandburg sketched a revealing portrait of himself in the preface to his Complete Poems (1950): "there was a puzzlement," he said, "as to whether I was a poet, a bio... Read more

In the following review of Chicago Poems, Monroe characterizes Sandburg's work as “a masterpiece of portraiture” that ranges from the “rugged” to the “exquisi... Read more

In the following review, Zwaska comments on Sandburg as a success among modern poets, and on the vast range of life displayed in Chicago Poems. It has come to be that on the stage, where once we wa... Read more

In the following excerpt, Lowell considers Sandburg's life, his work as a propagandist and lyric poet, and his place in the American poetic tradition. … To turn from Edgar Lee Masters... Read more

In the following essay, Benjamin lauds Sandburg as a poet of sympathy, simplicity, and the everyday. The poetry of Carl Sandburg, the poet who loves the common folk, and who weaves into the meshes ... Read more

In the following essay, Pound writes flippantly on the subject of labeling Sandburg a “tough” poet. Ezra Pound writes from Paris, with particular reference to the article in The Doubl... Read more

In the following excerpt, Cook briefly summarizes Sandburg's life and career as a poet up to 1923. “Carl Sandburg is an observer with sympathy but without fear. … He puts words... Read more

In the following excerpt, Jones evaluates Sandburg as a poet and underscores his strongly satirical voice. In the layman's mind there are two kinds of physician: the up-to-date specialist wi... Read more

In the following essay, Whipple surveys Sandburg's poetic sensibility and vision, arguing that while his talents and significance are considerable, Sandburg's poetry is sometimes poorly ... Read more

In the following essay, Kreymborg traces Sandburg's poetic development from Chicago Poems to Good Morning, America. … In 1914, Harriet Monroe's Poetry issued a group of poems b... Read more

In the following excerpt from a summary volume of U.S. literary history, the unsigned critic alleges that there is no significant stylistic development among Sandburg's collections of poetry bu... Read more

In the following essay, Van Doren assesses Sandburg's varied poetic talent and accomplishments. When he was fifty, Carl Sandburg once said, “there was puzzlement as to whether I was a... Read more

In the following essay, Wilson details Sandburg's life and literary career, citing significant developments in his later poetry. Carl Sandburg never won the Nobel Prize, but some Americans t... Read more

In the following essay, Mayer traces the “lyrical pessimism” of Sandburg's early poetry, finding a late response to it in The People, Yes, which presents Sandburg's theme o... Read more

In the following essay, Friberg probes Sandburg's poetry as it presents a tension between two ideals—America as a paradise and America as a land of progress—and as it promotes the... Read more

In the following essay, Brumm enumerates leitmotifs—including the innocent child, victimized maiden, and death—in Sandburg's Chicago Poems. Full of ideals and dreams, Carl Sand... Read more

In the following essay, Van Wienen maintains that Sandburg was far more political in his early poetry than is generally acknowledged. Carl Sandburg's reputation as the adulatory biographer o... Read more

In the following review of the reissued Chicago Poems, the unsigned critic draws attention to the work's ambivalent status near the end of the twentieth century. This reissue of Sandburg�... Read more

In the following essay, an anonymous critic discusses the merits of Sandburg's poem “They Will Say.” Pity poor Carl Sandburg. Not only is he, at least in Chicago Poems, shamefu... Read more

Critical Essay by David Perkins [Vachel] Lindsay once said that "the people of America walk through me, all the people walk through my veins, as though they were in the streets of a city, and ... Read more

Critical Essay by William Carlos Williams Carl Sandburg has been around a long time. In that period, during which modern art has celebrated some of its greatest triumphs, he has accumulated a mass of... Read more

Critical Essay by Herbert Mitgang Sandburg's life and times can be found in his poetry, biography and history. He struck out, most notably, in his one novel, Remembrance Rock. Though parts of ... Read more

Critical Essay by Derek Stanford Most of us non-Americans probably think of Carl Sandburg … as a Mid-West Walt Whitman writing poems which move to the steady puff puff of a long cow-catcher pr... Read more

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) was an American poet, biographer, and journalist. He was famous for his free-verse style writing and his tall appearance. Carl, Charlie by the family, was the second of seven... Read more

In the poem "Grass," Carl Sandburg writes about the multiplicity of deaths associated with war. It shows that many innocent lives are taken because of war. Also, many soldiers die fighting for their c... Read more