Carl Sandburg
As a child of an immigrant couple, Carl Sandburg was barely American himself, yet the life, which he had lived, has defined key aspects of our great country, and touched the hearts and minds of her people. Sandburg grew up in the American Midwest, yet spent the majority of his life traveling throughout the states. The country, which would define his style of poetry and his views of society, government, and culture, would equally be defined by his writing, lecturing, and the American dream he lived: The dream of becoming successful with only an idea and the will to use it. Historically, Sandburg's most defining poetic element is his free verse style. His open views towards American democracy, labor, and war earned him great respect, and even greater criticism. He was considered one of America's finest poets during his lifetime; moreover, he is now renowned as one of America's greatest poets of all time (Niven 388-406). August, his father, on a typical hard labor job expected from an immigrant male raising a family in the early nineteen hundreds. Odd jobs helped Carl support his family when he was forced to work at the young age of thirteen. Although raised poor, Carl aspired to
After a friend, Alfred Harcourt, risked his job to get Sandburg published for the first time, Sandburg's career took off. Even despite massive criticism based only on his political views, Sandburg sold thousands of books and became highly acclaimed (Lowell, 3012-3014). He worked his way to an individual free-verse style, which spoke clearly, directly, and often crudely to the audience which was also his subject. His poetry celebrated and consoled people in their environments--the crush of the city, the enduring solace the prairie. In his work for the Day Book, the Chicago Daily News, and the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA), Sandburg had become a skilled investigative reporter with passionate social concerns. He covered war, racial, lynching, mob violence, and the inequities of the industrial society, such as child labor, and disease and injury induced in the workplace. These concerns were transmuted into poetry. Chicago Poems offered bold, realistic portraits of working men, women, and children; of the "inexplicable fate" of the vulnerable struggling human victims of war, progress, and business. "Great men, pageants of war and labor, soldiers and workers, mothers lifting their children--these all I, and felt the solemn thrill of them," Sandburg wrote in "Masses." (Sherwood, 3022-3024) Sandburg's vision of the American experience was shaped in the American Midwest during the complicated events that brought the nineteenth century to a close. His parents were Swedish immigrants who met in Illinois, where they had settled in search of a share of American democracy and prosperity (Macleigh, 3016-3018). August Sandburg helped to build the first cross-continental railroad, and in the twentieth century his son Carl was an honored guest on the first cross-continental jet flight. August Sandburg was a blacksmith's helper for the Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad in Galesburg, Illinois, when his son was born on 6 January 1878 in a small cottage a few steps away from the roundhouse and railroad yards. Carl August Sandburg was the second child first son of the hardworking Sandburgs. He grew up speaking Swedish and English, and, eager to be assimilated into American society, he Americanized his name. In 1884 or 1885, "somewhere in the first year or two of school," he began to call himself Charles rather than the Swedish Carl because he had said "the name Carl would mean one more Poor Swede Boy while the name Charles filled the mouth and had 'em guessing" (Niven 401-405) On January 12, 1920, Untemeyer, a writer for New York's "New Republic" claims that Sandburg is one of the two greatest living poets of the times (Macleigh 3018). Carl Sandburg found his su
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1830
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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