Selected Poems

By Carl Sandburg

Book Overview

A superb collection of poems by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

This new collection of Carl Sandburg's iconic American poetry, which includes four previously unpublished Lincoln poems, contains selections from all of Sandburg's previous volumes. This treasury of accessible free verse poetry supports MacLeish's confidence in the breadth of Sandburg's scope and is designed for general readers and for students alike.

In more than 150 poems, arranged in eleven sections--from his famous poems about Chicago to powerful poems of protest and tributes to Lincoln--readers can see what Sandburg was made of and, in turn, what the poet saw in the American people. This remarkable collection of working-class poetry reflects Sandburg's aim to write "simple poems...which continue to have an appeal for simple people," and throughout his life the poet strove to maintain that important connection.

This collection features such poems as:

"Chicago""Grass""Arithmetic""A Father to His Son""A Dream Girl""The Long Shadow of Lincoln: A Litany"

Edited and with an Introduction by George and Willene Hendrick. The Hendricks, in their thoughtful and comprehensive introduction, discuss how Sandburg's life and beliefs colored his work and why that work resonates with Americans today.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156003961
• ISBN13: 9780156003964
• Release Date: August 1996
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Selected Poems of Carl Sandburg

A splendid collage of American poetry nurtured by a deep love of the land, it's intricate nature and complex heritage by one who involved his soul into its heritage and history.

The Hobo Philosopher

I have a friend who is a poet like myself and many years ago I asked him, "Why are there no poets who write about working people?" He said there are and a week or so later I received this small volume by Carl Sandburg in the mail. That may have been twenty or more years ago and I still have this book sitting on my night stand. It begins with "Chicago" and contains maybe 100 more gems. I know a lot more about Carl Sandburg than I did way back when. He is a good poet and writes the "real" stuff. I like his work very much. He speaks frankly but retains the mystery and needless to say he makes one think. And isn't that what poetry is all about. I try to include a poem or two in any of my books. I got two or three in "A Summer with Charlie" and I intend to sneak one or two into "Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother". When I revise Hobo-ing America I am going to add a couple of poems. I love poetry. Books written by Richard Noble - The Hobo Philosopher: "Hobo-ing America: A Workingman's Tour of the U.S.A.." "A Summer with Charlie" "A Little Something: Poetry and Prose" "Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother" "The Eastpointer" Selections from award winning column.

WONDERFUL LITTLE VOLUME.

Like other offerings in this series from the American Poets Project, this one hits the mark. Craig Matteson has already given us a wonderful reivew of this book here, so I will certainly not cover the same ground. From a personal point of view though, Sandburg has always been one of my favorite poets. I am rather a simple person and his style and subject matter fit my needs perfectly. As Matteson has pointed out, poetry must be read slowly and often to be truely enjoyed. Several of my favorites are published in this small volume, which includes "Billy Sunday," and "White Ash." It just does not get much better than that. I did enjoy the introduction by Paul Berman, the editor. He gives us a brief publishing history and discusses the Sanburg Pound link, which I found fascinating for some reason. All in all, this and other offerings from the American Poets Project are a good thing and well worth adding to your collection. We should all be grateful.

A fine selection by works of one of the great poets of the Midwest

Carl Sandburg had a long career that had a kind of kaleidoscopic transformation over its many decades. His best regarded poems come from the teens and twenties of the last century. His imagery was that of the Midwest with its plains, farms, and the booming industry and rising skyscrapers of Chicago. Almost no one younger than fifty can remember how popular he was. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his final four volumes of the six volume biography of Lincoln in 1940. This massive biography is an apt example of Sandburg's changing career. The ordinary folks loved it, and once they did the sophisticates and scholars couldn't demean it enough, but this rejection came later. He won a second Pulitzer for his collected poems in "The Complete Poems" in 1951. The radio loved his old fashioned style of reading poetry almost as a song and later he added a guitar to his readings and was popular on TV. His brand of American Nationalism grew less popular in the mid-1960s and after he died in mid-1967, the rabid anti-War movement rejected all such patriotism as a kind of jingoism that was not acceptable to the young. Sandburg's reputation faded from that time. He is still fondly remembered by many, but not a cultural icon as he once was. In his younger years he was a socialist, such as American Socialism was in those early years of the last century. He helped organize workers, worked at socialist publications where many of his poems appeared. However, as the socialist movement became more radical, he did not go with them. The common man and woman with their ordinary lives of work, toil, hopes, suffering, entertainments, loves, violence, and their massive and anonymous contribution to our nation's wealth and social order were his focus and his muse. This wonderful volume contains selections from those volumes focuses on those early decades. Some of the poems I find magical and they still retain much power. "Skyscraper" (pg 19) seems one of the finer poems to me. Of course, there the famous - almost brand name - poems such as "Chicago" with its "Hog Butcher for the World" and "City of the Big Shoulders". And the not always well received "The People, Yes!" He also has poems as a kind of epitaph for the famous of his day that had passed. You will probably need to search the web for the names to know who many of them were. Remember, when he wrote these poems, they were commenting on contemporary society. For us, it is a passed age. Nothing ages faster than the modern. A few of the poems are almost like haiku (I wonder if it was deliberate) and one sounds almost Nietzschean. "The Hammer" from 1910 on pg 132 could have come from the pages of "Twilight of the Idols". Poems take time to read, so even a slim volume such as this requires some time. Not because it is hard to read, or because you can't zip through it, but because poems require time to resonate. The whole point is less to tell you something from the outside as a technical manual

A few memorable much anthologized poems

The Sandburg I know is the Sandburg of 'Chicago' and 'The fog comes in on little cat's feet' and above all " Tell me if the lovers are the losers, in the tombs, in the cool tombs' Memorable lines from the antholgies , a small selection of a lifetime of writing.