Carl Sandburg Books

I bought "Rainbows Are Made" for a teenager as a Congratulations gift, and he has since looked up more of Carl Sandburg's work. I'm waiting to see if his curious enjoyment of it takes him any further. For now, I can't think of anything else that would recommend the permanence of this collection anymore than this.

In 5th grade, we had to choose a poem to recite from a book ofthe teachers choice. I was given this book, and fell in love with it.'Grass' is haunting, and subtle word play makes every read seem like the first time.

Sandburg was a superb poet. he speaks in such a raw voice, that the poems cannot help but to reach out and touch you, whether he writes about love, injustice, protest, war, chicago or any other subject.

If I were teaching Sandburg, i would use this collection as my text.

The introduction is concise, yet informative, giving some quick context to the life and ideas behind the poems.

Keeping in mind this is a selected works, and not a complete works, think of this as a "best of" edition.

Organized by ideas: * Chicago * Images * Poems of Protest * Love Poems * Lincoln * Anti-War and War Poems * Portraits * African-Americans * Poet of the People * Musings * Poetry Definitions.

By organizing them idealogically, it helps the reader becoming familiar with Sandburg as a primer. You can see his clear cynicism of religion and of religious people, and of his socialistic leanings (he is direct about these thoughts). His "Billy Sunday" is an intriguing look at a man who was just a man, yet spoke about Christ. Though Sandburg was known to be atheistic, it could be argued he had more spiritual thoughts.

You can read his sense of empathy and unity with the common man. Any urban dweller will hum in agreement to so much of his Chicago poems.

Sandburg's sense of rural beauty comes out, as does his pure admiration of Lincoln. Well-said is his recollection of the sinking of the Eastland (a boat which sunk in the Chicago River)... or, rather, his thoughts of how so many people died, and how many might've died.

I could go poem by poem, but the fact remains that Sandburg's style impacts poets today, from the Beats to Maya Angelou, to Gwendolyn Brooks.

I fully recommend this book.

Anthony Trendl

I am particularly interested in American and British drama from the first half of the 20th century. My favorite American playwright is Robert E. Sherwood, my favorite American play is Sherwood's "The Road to Rome," and my second favorite American play is "Abe Lincoln in Illinois."

I lost all sense of time and place while reading "Abe." I forgot I was sitting on a couch in NYC, and thought I was back in Illinois with Honest Abe.

Sherwood is a FOUR-TIME Pulitzer Prize winner, and it makes me sad that this brilliant playwright is so sorely neglected, and that so many people give you a puzzled look when you mention his name.

Read this play, read the aforementioned "Road to Rome" (a love story, a laugh-out-loud comedy, and ALSO a "message play"), and your literary life will be enriched. (Trust me, I've read hundreds of plays, and heck, it ain't a piece of cake to win even ONE Pulitzer!!)

Excellent Excellent Detialed week by week history of the administration through the biographies of all who knew him, generals, cabinet and plain folks.

If you manage to read all six volumes of Sandburg's labor of love, you will feel a great sense of accomplishment, and you will know Abraham Lincoln inside and out. At least as much as this rather secretive man allowed anyone to see. When I finished, I felt like an old friend had left my life. That said, at times Sandburg sorely needed a better editor. He would run on forever with newspaper accounts of basically the same thing, as if he had to hammer home the point. Each and every visitor that ever applied to Lincoln for anything is recorded. We get the picture 3 pages ago. The research must have been prodigious. The 1st volume was rather poetic in the beginning, not surprising from such a one as Sandburg. Mostly, my interest never flagged. Six months it took me to read it. And am very glad I did.

While most of us may be familiar with Carl Sandburg the biographer, Sandburg the historian, Sandburg the folksinger and Sandburg the poet of "Fog" and "Chicago" fame, most of us are not familiar with Sandburg the antiwar activitist, Sandburg the capital punishment opponent, Sandburg the religious hippocracy muckraker and Sandburg the Socialist. This collection of early works, written while Sandburg was employed as a journalist, introduces us the the second Sandburg. Considered too graphic in content, too frank in language, too taboo in theme and too disturbing in imagery to be published during his lifetime, these poems show us a young, angry Sandburg before he was elevated to the status of literary icon and cultural treasure. As a high school history teacher, I use this collection to introduce my students to such diverse topics as racism, sexism, the "Eastland" disaster, the religious revivals and fundamentalism and the Sacco and Vanzetti trail. Anytime you can get adolescents to volunteer to read poems in class, as they do with these, the lesson plan has to be considered a success and the credit goes to Sandburg for his writings, which to this day provoke lively discussion and strike a powerful cord on the human condition with the common man. Your library is not complete with this brief volume.

Marilyn Monroe was an intellectual, and she had many friends that were writers, Truman Capote, Norman Rosten (the poet),
her husband Arthur Miller, and poet Carl Sandburg, and pulitzer prize winning author John F. Kennedy (Profiles in Courage) among others.
She had a fascination with Abraham Lincoln. She once said she
married Arthur Miller because he reminded her of Abraham Lincoln. There are some photos by Eve Arnold that shows Marilyn
visiting an Abraham Lincoln exhibit in Illinois.
I can only imagine the intensity of Marilyn the intellectual
meeting the great Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg. To her it
must have been nirvana. I am sure they could talk for hours on
end.
The photos of Marilyn and Carl Sandburg dancing at a party at
Henry Weinstein's house in 1962 are a delight to see. They are
available on the internet.
Yet, to my disappointment, I have not been able to find any
information about the book(?) Carl Sandburg talks about Marilyn
Monroe: an exclusive interview for Cavalier. Nor has this interview ever been quoted in Marilyn Monroe biographies.
If anyone has any information , please send me an email at
polabaker@yahoo.com. You will make my day.
Carl Sandburg earned Two Pulitzer prizes, one for poetry and
one for biography (Abraham Lincoln). Arthur Miller earned a
pulitzer prize for Drama ( Death of a Salesman). Marilyn Monroe
had an intellectual curiosity and enjoyed the company of such
creative men.
The article CARL SANDBURG TALKS ABOUT MARILYN MONROE, IN cAVALIER, INTERVIEWED BY JULIAN SCHEER, was in a 1960's magazine
dedicated to show business personalities. I guess this magazine
has been discontinued. If this interview was ever reprinted in
a book, or included in a compilation of Carl Sandburg's writings,
I do not have that information.
Whoever has a copy of this interview, please post it on the internet. so that we Marilyn Monroe fans and collectors can
appreciate Carl sandburg's remarks. I also wonder if Carl Sandburg ever wrote a poem for Marilyn Monroe, in her lifetime,
or after her death. At the time of Marilyn Monroe's death, August
4th, 1962, Joe Dimaggio who was in charge of the funeral had
requested Carl Sandburg to pronounce the eulogy at her funeral
services. He was unable to do so because of poor health. The
eulogy was given by her acting mentor, LEE STRASBERG. Yet, one
wonders what Carl Sandburg would have spoken at that precise moment.

In this biography of Carl Sandburg, Penelope Niven draws on her considerable knowledge of the poet to create a first-rate presentation. (Niven is the author of Carl Sandburg: A Biography as well as the founder and director the National Carl Sandburg Oral History Project.)

The book proceeds in chronological fashion. Each double-page section juxtaposes biographical information (on the left) with one of Sandburg's poems or a prose selection (on the right). This has the effect of making the poems and prose more personal, more meaningful. In the section titled "Soldier," for example, Niven discusses Sandburg's participation in the Spanish-American War. He and fellow soldiers had to wade "ashore in deep water, dressed in hot wool uniforms left over from the Civil War." On the facing page we read the poignant "New Feet":

Empty battlefields keep their phantoms.
Grass crawls over old gun wheels
And nodding Canada thistle flings a purple
Into the summer's southwest wind,

Wrapping a root in the rust of a bayonet,
Reaching a blossom in the rust of shrapnel.

Marc Nadel's watercolor-and-crosshatch illustrations are beautifully done, historically accurate, and the perfect compliment to Niven's text. According to the "Illustration Notes," Sandburg's personal possessions are featured in the artwork.

Carl Sandburg was a multifaceted individual: a journalist, a family man, a storyteller, an historian, and a dreamer. Niven does an extraordinary job of bringing to life America 's "Poet of the People."

Highly recommended.

Reviewed by the Education Oasis Staff

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.

This is the book I would take with me if I was stranded on a deserted island. Actually, I take it with me on every fishing and camping trip. It is a compact book which contains all of Carl Sandburg's most popular poems. I have 'The complete poems of Carl Sandburg' and it is a great book to have at home. However, it is too big to take anywhere with you. 'Harvest Poems' is a small paper back which costs less than $10 and contains my favorite poems "Chicago' and "Under a harvest moon" . It is sure to contain your favorite Sandburg poems too. If you are unfamiliar with this poet you might find a new favorite here. This is not poetry in the traditional sense. It does not rhyme. It will affect you down to your very core. I hope you give it a chance and enjoy it as much as I do.