SOURCE: Benjamin, Paul L. “A Poet of the Common-Place.” Survey 45 (2 October 1920): 12-13.

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 of his song the simple, homely things of life—the Kansas farmer with the corn-cob between his teeth, the red drip of the sunset, the cornhuskers with red bandannas knotted at their ruddy chins—cannot be shredded apart from Carl Sandburg, the man. Indeed, as I write I seem to be chatting with him about his work and about the moving things of life, the deep, rich things, of running waters, of companionship with birds and trees, of love and tenderness, of life among those who sweat and toil—those secret, hidden things which only those who are ambassadors to men can...