SOURCE: Basler, Roy P. “Your Friend the Poet—Carl Sandburg.” Midway 10, no. 2 (autumn 1969): 3-15.

In the following essay, Basler appraises Sandburg as a poet outside of the literary establishment.

For the period of my life during which I was engaged in editing The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, it was my fortune to operate in and from a suite of offices in the First National Bank Building of what has been known with pride, locally at least, as “Lincoln's Home Town.” One day, as I entered the elevator on the way up, I was greeted by a lawyer from the adjoining office, with the news that “Your friend the poet is upstairs looking for you.” For it was as a poet that Carl Sandburg was known then, and I think, will continue to be known for a long time to come, in spite of critical opinion at present...