Customer Reviews

Chicago Poems (Dover Thrift Editions)

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A recent death in the family prompted me to examine my life to see what I should be doing differently. The answer, one of them anyway, was I should be reading more poetry. So I got this little gem of a book from Amazon and read it through. Carl Sandburg was a master and one of the old time American poets who spoke simply and directly so that each of us could clearly understand. Fog is a typical example: The fog comes in on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on. Wow! If that sounds like great writing it is because it is. I wish I could write a poem like that and I wish Chicago Poems would out sell my own poem book because it has so much more to offer.

When such a quantity of beautiful and profound poems comes along at such a ludicrously low price, you owe it to yourself to get it. Carry this book in your work bag, take it on the bus, and get a daily dose of Carl Sandburg, the Lowry of poetry, with his word-paintings of factories, immigrants, war, socialism, prostitution and so on. Buy it for a friend or donate it to a fellow passenger! Wonderful ...

In my reading of poetry I have developed a peculiar habit. In the Table Of Contents I pencil in an asterisk before the titles of poems that I especially enjoyed. I find that this helps me to quickly relocate special poems later when I want to re-read them. In my copy of Sandburg's "Chicago Poems" there are many asterisks. I think that one of the things that appeal to me about these particular series of poems is their "urbanity". As the title suggests, these are often poems about "city"... about the "cosmopolis". Sandburg had a way of animating concrete and asphalt, and making us aware of the inner life of things that millions of us urbanites walk past each day. In one of my favorites entitled "Skyscraper" he says "It is the men and women, boys and girls so poured in and out all day that give the building a soul of dreams and thoughts and memories." And it ends beautifully with "By night the skyscraper looms in the smoke and the stars and has a soul." It is as though if any of Sandburg's Chicago Poems were to just remain silent for a moment, we would hear the faint night-time "humming and thrumming" of "a copper wire slung in the air." (cf. his Under A Telephone Pole).

He writes with a solemnity that avoids being morose, which is refreshing. But take note... "you will be thwarted every time, you try to catch a Sandburg rhyme." (they never rhyme). As for metre, his poems are in a free-verse very much reminiscent of Walt Whitman. The perfect poetry to read while feeding the pigeons, or otherwise commuting to and from the park.

Sandburg is one of the greatest poets the US has had, so much that he became an American icon. His poems use a language that everyone can understand and he speaks of subjects that we all know. He is one of the finest poets we've ever had, and to be able to get this collection for around a dollar, you'd have to be a fool to pass on this.

An AMAZING anthology of this great poet's work. The poem "To a Contemporary Bunkshooter" is more timely today than when it was written. Powerful, awesome, and wonderful.

Ever since I had moved to the Midwest, Chicago has been looming large in the distance as the preeminent urban center for the whole region. I have visited it often, and even though I appreciate its architectural splendor and all the cultural riches that it has to offer, it remains a somewhat forbidding place in my mind.

Carl Sandburg's poems reflect the gritty and industrialized reality of life in a big city. Even though Chicago has considerably changed and evolved since these poems were first written, they still manage to capture much of this city's persistent essence. The poems feel fresh and have not lost any of their edge. For the maximum impact they should be read carefully, and one should not rush though this seemingly short book. These are very good poems that will likely remain relevant and impactful for many years to come.

A few weeks after September 11 2001, I came across the poem "Skyscraper" by Sandburg by chance in a huge volume of American poetry. In the millions of lines written about that horrible day, I found his words from 70 years ago to be the most moving. Here are some lines from that poem:

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BY day the skyscraper looms in the smoke and sun and has a soul.
Prairie and valley, streets of the city, pour people into it and they mingle among its twenty floors and are poured out again back to the streets, prairies and valleys.
It is the men and women, boys and girls so poured in and out all day that give the building a soul of dreams and thoughts and memories...

Hour by hour the caissons reach down to the rock of the earth and hold the building to a turning planet.
Hour by hour the girders play as ribs and reach out and hold together the stone walls and floors....

Men who sunk the pilings and mixed the mortar are laid in graves where the wind whistles a wild song without words
And so are men who strung the wires and fixed the pipes and tubes and those who saw it rise floor by floor.
Souls of them all are here, even the hod carrier begging at back doors hundreds of miles away and the brick-layer who went to state's prison for shooting another man while drunk...

Ten-dollar-a-week stenographers take letters from corporation officers, lawyers, efficiency engineers, and tons of letters go bundled from the building to all ends of the earth.
Smiles and tears of each office girl go into the soul of the building just the same as the master-men who rule the building.

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I have never studied Sandburg, but it seems to me he shares that same love of humanity and fairness that Walt Whitman was so famous for, along with the ability to craft lines as amazing as "hold the building to a turning planet". His love of his modern city seems like a remnant from another age, but his absolute belief in class equality is as relevant as any 2001 street protest.

Wonderful and authentic, a great collection for any Sandburg devotee or any patriotic Chicagoan. I was a little disappointed with the actual quality of the book, binding and covers, but it is not an expensive edition and the collection is priceless. A must read!

How can ya go wrong here!

The greatest debut in 20th century poetic history for 80 cents? WOW WOW WOW!

When this came out in '16 there was no fresher voice than Sandburg's, and it's still a fresh voice today! Sandburg's phrasing and imagery are so stark and lovely I can even forgive his annoying and naive Socialism (which isn't that strong here, anyway).

Read it and you'll never forget it.

AL

Make sure you check out the sample of this version of Sandburg's poetry. The formatting makes the poems totally unreadable. I would suggest you avoid buying this version unless you just want to waste your money.