Biography Essay

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 biographer, a wandering troubadour with a guitar, a midwest Hans Christian Andersen, or a historian of current events. . . ." He was seventy-two in 1950 and "still studying verbs and the mystery of how they connect nouns. . . . I have forgotten the meaning of twenty or thirty of my poems written thirty or forty years ago. I still favor several simple poems published long ago which continue to have an appeal for simple people."

Sandburg wrote a landmark six-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln. A consummate platform performer, he roamed the United States for nearly a half century, guitar in hand, collecting and singing American folk songs. For his own children and children everywhere he wrote Rootabaga Stories...