Carl Sandburg

Grace Kaufhold
F Block Lit
Mr. Dilworth
4/2/15

Carl Sandburg

On January 6, 1878 in Galesburg, Illinois a very talented and inspiring man was born, Carl Sandburg. He grew up with a rough childhood with his parents being very poor and he had to work to help earn money for his family. When Carl turned seventeen years old he decided to become a hobo and travel to Kansas. He then joined and served in the Spanish-American war for eight months. His life turned around when he met a student from Lombard College while serving in the war. The student convinced Carl to enroll after finishing up from the war. When he got to Lombard College he attracted the attention of Professor Philip Green Wright. He was a very important part of Carl’s life because he encouraged his writings and paid for the publication of his first volume of poetry called Reckless Ecstasy. Sandburg moved to Milwaukee, where he worked as an advertising writer and a newspaper reporter. Then worked for the Social-Democrat Party in Wisconsin and later acted as secretary to the first Socialist mayor of Milwaukee. Carl liked to stay busy and keep working hard in life.

The next chapter in Carl’s life was to move to Chicago where he became very successful. He became an editorial writer for the Chicago Daily News. Harriet Monroe who was another popular American writer who had just started Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, and began publishing Sandburg’s poems. She was also a very important part of Carl’s life because she encouraged him to write even more in free-verse, which is an open form of poetry. He was recognized as a member of the Chicago literary renaissance, which included Ben Hecht, Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, and Edgar Lee Masters. The Chicago literary renaissance helped shape the development of American literature. He established his reputation with Chicago Poems in 1916, and then Cornhuskers in 1918, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in 1919 which is an award for an achievement in American journalism, literature, or music. Soon after the publication of these volumes Sandburg wrote Smoke and Steel in 1920. Sandburg had collections of American folklore, the ballads in The American Songbag and The New American Songbag (1950), and books for children. He went on a tour across America and recited his poems, sang songs while playing the banjo or guitar. He wrote a book on Abraham Lincoln and won a Pulitzer Prize. He received a second Pulitzer Prize for his Complete Poems His final volumes of verse were Harvest Poems, in 1960 and Honey and Salt in 1963. Carl Sandburg drew most of his inspiration from American history and was profoundly influenced by Walt Whitman because he could relate a lot of himself to Walt’s life. Carl died on July 22, 1967.

Fog

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on

Works Cited:

"Carl Sandburg's "Fog" - A T Short #43 1080p (HD-3D)." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2015

Hunter, Carl Sandburg - Poem. "Fog Poem." Poemhunter.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2015.

"Carl Sandburg." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2015.









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