Style
Style—go ahead talking about style.You can tell where a man gets his style justas you can tell where Pavlowa got her legsor Ty Cobb his batting eye.
Go on talking.Only don't take my style away.It's my face.Maybe no goodbut anyway, my face.I talk with it, I sing with it, I see, taste and feel with it,I know why I want to keep it.
Kill my styleand you break Pavlowa's legs,and you blind Ty Cobb's batting eye.
Words in this poem
- ahead adv.
- In or to the front; in advance; onward. [Pref. a- + head.]
- cobb n.
- The top or head of anything. W. Gifford. [Cf. AS. cop, copp, head, top, D. kop, G. kopf, kuppe, LL. cuppa cup (cf. E. brainpan), and also W. cob tuft, spider, cop, copa, top, summit, cobio to thump. Cf.]
- batting n.
- The act of one who bats; the management of a bat in playing games of ball. Mason.
- maybe adv.
- Perhaps; possibly; peradventure. [For it may be.]
- anyway adv.
- Anywise; at all. Tennyson. Southey.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Style is in the public domain. This text is taken from Chicago Poems, Wikisource; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Carl Sandburg, Style, in Chicago Poems (1916), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-chicago-poems/style.html, id L28894.
Form and metre
Style is 14 lines in 3 stanzas.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 2 --A-ABB talking · away · faceA · good · faceA · itB · itB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Style—go ahead talking about style. | 9 | ··˘//˘··· |
| You can tell where a man gets his style just | 10 | ·········· |
| as you can tell where Pavlowa got her legs | 11 | ··········· |
| or Ty Cobb his batting eye. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Go on talking. | 4 | ··/˘ |
| Only don't take my style away. | 8 | /˘····˘/ |
| It's my face. | 3 | ··· |
| Maybe no good | 4 | /˘·· |
| but anyway, my face. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| I talk with it, I sing with it, I see, taste and feel with it, | 15 | ··············· |
| I know why I want to keep it. | 8 | ········ |
| Kill my style | 3 | ··· |
| and you break Pavlowa's legs, | 7 | ······· |
| and you blind Ty Cobb's batting eye. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.