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 prairie express. The train is bound for Democratic Progress; and the poet, aboard the observation car, announces to 'the People' all the delights—and horrors—the passengers must pass through as they make their way to Utopia. A worthy somewhat dated itinerary though much preferable to Aragon's USSR/USSR and other childish obeisances.

But there were aspects of Sandburg which most of us British readers did not know—the amatory Imagist, for example…. Breathing Tokens contains one hundred and twenty-five poems, all but three appearing in print for the first time…. [It is a] collection full of attractive surprises. There is nothing like a posthumous volume for helping us to re-assess our picture of a poet. (p. 34)

Derek Stanford, "The Scholar-Poet...