Sandburg's Song: Part 1

Part One: The Poet

Oh Boy, I might’ve bitten off more than I could chew on this one.  But we’re all in now! So where to begin digging in on this masterpiece of lyrical lasciviousness; this parlance of pride; this music of mockery and ballad of the “Big Shoulders”? Let’s start with the man himself.

Carl Sandburg

CarlSandburg (1878-1967) was a man of letters. Born in Galesburg, Il., a small town far west of Chicago, to Clara Mathilda and August Sandberg( he later changed the “-berg” to “-burg”) a young Carl later moved from the sleepy town to the bright gaslights of Chicago to write as a cub reporter for the Chicago Daily News and the Day Book. What he saw during his time in Chicago would be the inspiration to Sandburg’s greatest contribution to the realm of Windy City literature, and simultaneously gifting it one of its most known nicknames, the “City of Big Shoulders.”

First appearing in the famous Poetry magazine in March 1914, to primer the ensuing discussion I present to you Carl Sandburg’s tour de force, Chicago, in its entirety:

Chicago

First publication of "Chicago" in Poetry, 1914

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:


They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;


Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,


Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,


Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse,
and under his ribs the heart of the people,


Laughing!


Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

Please check back for "Sandburg's Song: Part 2" for more on the poet, his legacy, and his poem