Chicago Poems
Sandburg's first major book, the free verse that made him the poet of Chicago, its stockyards, mills and streets.
What this poem is
Chicago Poems is a 1916 collection of poetry by Carl Sandburg, his first by a mainstream publisher.
Sandburg moved to Chicago in 1912 after living in Milwaukee, where he had served as secretary to Emil Seidel, Milwaukee's Socialist mayor. Harriet Monroe, a fellow resident of Chicago, had recently founded the magazine Poetry at around this time. Monroe liked and encouraged Sandburg's plain-speaking free verse style, strongly reminiscent of Walt Whitman.
Sandburg sent his manuscript to Alfred Harcourt, then a junior-ranking editor at Henry Holt. Facing opposition from above, Harcourt removed and censored—with Sandburg's co-operation—the harsher poems. For example, the direct criticism of "Billy Sunday" by name, previously published in The Masses and International Socialist Review, was replaced with the more tepid and anonymous "To a Contemporary Bunkshooter".
Chicago Poems established Sandburg as a major figure in contemporary literature. Chicago Poems, and its follow-up volumes of verse, Cornhuskers (1918) and Smoke and Steel (1920) represent Sandburg's attempts to found an American version of social realism, writing expansive verse in praise of American agriculture and industry.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article “Chicago Poems” (revision 1369489443), used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Laurel's own notes and measurements are not from Wikipedia.
Measured across the book
Across its 1,659 lines, 86% of stressed syllables fall on the beat (95% interval 85% to 87%). Alliteration runs at 1.05 times what shuffling the words would give (0.39 observed against 0.37 expected). 42% of the lines have a feminine ending.
Baselines and intervals are described in the methods.
Contents
Bath
A man saw the whole world as a grinning skull and cross-bones. The rose flesh of life shriveled from all faces. Nothing counts. Everything is a fake. Dust to dust and ashes to ashes and then an old darkness and a useless silence. So he saw it all. Then he went to a Mischa Elman concert. Two hours waves of sound beat on his eardrums. Music washed something or other inside him. Music broke down and rebuilt something or other in his head and heart. He joined in five encores for the young Russian Jew with the fiddle. When he got outside his heels hit the sidewalk a new way. He was the same man in the same world as before. Only there was a singing fire and a climb of roses everlastingly over the world he looked on.
Silver Nails
A man was crucified. He came to the city a stranger, was accused, and nailed to a cross. He lingered hanging. Laughed at the crowd. “The nails are iron,” he said, “You are cheap. In my country when we crucify we use silver nails…” So he went jeering. They did not understand him at first. Later they talked about him in changed voices in the saloons, bowling alleys, and churches. It came over them every man is crucified only once in his life and the law of humanity dictates silver nails be used for the job. A statue was erected to him in a public square. Not having gathered his name when he was among them, they wrote him as John Silvernail on the statue.
About this text
Public domain. Text from Chicago Poems, Wikisource. Free to read, print, copy and reuse.