Carl Sandburg Biography and List of Works

American poet, historian, novelist and folklorist, 'the singing bard'. Sandburg provides a voice for the least powerful in society. He was a central figure in the 'Chicago Renaissance' and played a significant role in the development of poetry that occurred during the first two decades of the 20th century. His emphasis on the tradition of American experience associates him with Hart Crane and Robinson Jeffers.

These people of the air,
these children of the wind,
had a sense of where to go and how,
how to go north north-by-west north,
till they came to one wooden pole,
till they were home again.
(from The People, Yes, 1936)

Carl Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois, the son of poor Swedish immigrant parents. His father was August Sandburg, a blacksmith and railroad worker. His mother was the former Clara Anderson. Sandburg was educated at public school until he was thirteen, and then worked at various odd jobs in Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado. In 1898 he returned to his hometown and found employment as a house painter.

One of Sandburg's favourite anecdotes concerned his rejection from West Point because he failed the test in arithmetic and grammar. When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, Sandurg enlisted in the 6th Infantry, but saw no combat. Upon his return he entered Lombard college in Galesburg, studying the classics. During these years he worked as a janitor and as a "call man" on the Galesburg fire department. Encouraged by professor Philip Green Wright, Sandburg began to write poetry. His first book, IN RECKLESS ECSTASY, was printed privately in 1904.

Just short of receiving his degree in 1902, Sandburg moved to Wisconsin. He worked as traveller for company that manufactured stereopticon slides, a labour organizer for the Wisconsin Social-Democrats, and as a journalist on the Milwaukee Leader. He was also involved in the presidential campaign of Eugene V. Debs. In 1908 he married Lillian Steichen, a schoolteacher, fellow socialist, and the sister of the noted photographer Edward Steichen, whose biography Sandburg was to write. From 1910 to 1912 he worked as secretary to the Socialist mayor of Milwaukee. Like Theodore Dreiser and a number of other writers and artists, Sandburg was considered a security risk by J. Edgar Hoover and the F.B.I. who kept a dossier on him.

"I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on the way."

In 1913 Sandburg moved to a suburb of Chicago with his family, where he worked as an editor of a business magazine and published articles in the International Socialist Review. His poems were first published in Harriet Monroe's (1860-1936) magazine Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. In 1918 Sandburg visited Sweden, upon his return he was questioned by the Federal authorities and accused of supporting the Bolsheviks in Russia. Sandburg, however, was not a political thinker and soon became the voice of the men and ideals of the Midwest. The Levinson Prize, awarded by Poetry in 1914, established Sandburg as an important new voice in literature.

Sandburg's first major collection of poems, CHICAGO POEMS, appeared in 1916. It includes the famous 'Chicago' and 'Fog.' He was too old to serve in the army during World War I, but went abroad to serve as a foreign correspondent. Upon his return, in 1919, he joined the staff of the Chicago Daily News, where he stayed for the next thirteen years. His free verse, reflecting industrial America, gained wide popularity during the Depression years, although his use of everyday language at first shocked readers. Interested in American folksongs, he published in 1927 a collection in THE AMERICAN SONGBAG and later NEW AMERICAN SONGBAG (1950). These collections consisted of songs Sandburg had heard from railroad men, cowboys, lumberjack, hobos, convicts and workers on farms and in factories.

THE PEOPLE, YES (1936) is probably Sandburg's most popular book. In The People, Yes, his interest in folk speech and folk expression became a clear feature of his poetry. It also gave evidence of the author's epigrammatic skill and felicitous phrasing. Because Sandburg's writings celebrate the American spirit, he was often called the successor to Walt Whitman.

Sandburg's life of Lincoln was published in six volumes (1926-1939) and although historians have criticized its errors, it won the admiration of most critics and was praised for its style and readability. Edmund Wilson's wisecrack in Patriotic Gore (1962) is perhaps the fiercest attack on the work: "The cruellest thing that has happened to Lincoln since he was shot by Booth has been to fall into the hands of Carl Sandburg." ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THE WAR YEARS (1939, 4 vols.) won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for history. It traces Lincoln's career from the time of his departure for the White House, up to May 4, 1865. ABE LINCOLN GROWS UP (1928) was written for young readers, and was drawn from THE PRAIRIE YEARS (1926). Sandburg's only novel, REMEMBRANCE ROCK (1948), is an epic saga of America. His autobiographical works include ALWAYS THE YOUNG STRANGERS (1953) and EVER THE WINDS OF CHANGE (1983).

BE READY

Be land ready
for you shall go back to land.

Be sea ready
for you have been nine-tenths water
and the salt taste shall cling to your mouth.

Be sky ready
for air, air, has been so needful to you -
you shall go back, back to the sky.
(from Wind Song, 1960)

In 1928 Sandburg moved to Harbert, Michigan. In 1943, seeking a milder climate, the family moved again, this time to Connemara, and a farm in Flat Rock, North Carolina. Here Sandburg lived the rest of his life. Between the wars Sandburg travelled extensively reciting poetry and accompanying himself on a guitar. During World War II he wrote a folksy syndicated newspaper column for the Chicago Times. From 1945 he lived as a farmer and writer in Flat Rock North Carolina, breeding goats and singing folk songs. Sandburg died on July 22, in 1967. "It could be, in the grace of God, I shall live to be eighty-nine, as did Hokusai, and speaking my farewell to earthly scenes, I might paraphrase: 'If God had let me live five years longer I should have been a writer.'"

For further reading: Carl Sandburg: a Study of Personality and Background by Karl W. Detzer (1941); Carl Sandburg by Harry L. Golden (1961); Carl Sandburg by Richard Crowder (1964); Sandburg: Photographer's View by E. Streicher (1966); Carl Sandburg: Lincoln of Our Literature by North Callahan (1970); Carl Sandburg by G.W. Allen (1972); Carl Sandburg: His Life and Works by North Callahan (1987); Carl Sandburg: A Reference Guide, ed. by D. Salwak (1988); Carl Sandburg by P. Niven (1991); The Other Carl Sandburg by P.R. Yannella (1996)

IN RECKLESS ECSTASY, (1904)