SOURCE: Reid, Robert L. “The Day Book Poems of Carl Sandburg.” The Old Northwest: A Journal of Regional Life and Letters 9, no. 3 (fall 1983): 205-18.

In the following essay, Reid focuses on four largely unknown poems by Sandburg originally published in the Chicago newspaper The Day Book while Sandburg was a member of the staff.

Early in 1914, Carl Sandburg, an aspiring poet unrecognized by the literary world, joined the staff of a small daily newspaper in Chicago. He worked as a reporter for The Day Book for three and a half years until the paper ceased publication in July 1917. This assignment represented the longest period of regular employment which Sandburg, thirty-six years old when he started, had experienced. Of greater significance, however, these Day Book years witnessed his emergence as a major American writer.

Described as an experiment in journalism by its editor, Negley Cochran, The Day Book began...