Joliet
On the one hand the steel works.On the other hand the penitentiary.Sante Fé trains and Alton trainsBetween smokestacks on the westAnd gray walls on the east.And Lockport down the river.
Part of the valley is God's.And part is man's.The river course laid outA thousand years ago.The canals ten years back.
The sun on two canals and one riverMakes three stripes of silverOr copper and goldOr shattered sunflower leaves.Talons of an icebergScraped out this valley.Claws of an avalanche loosed here.
Words in this poem
- penitentiary n.
- One who prescribes the rules and measures of penance. [Cf. F. pénitencier. See Penitent.]
- iceberg n.
- A large mass of ice, generally floating in the ocean. [Prob. of Scand. origin; cf. Dan. iisbierg, Sw. isberg, properly, a mountain of ice. See Ice, and Berg.]
- avalanche n.
- A large mass or body of snow and ice sliding swiftly down a mountain side, or falling down a precipice. [F. avalanche, fr. avaler to descend, to let down, from aval down, downward; ad) + val, L. vallis, valley. See Valley.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Joliet is in the public domain. This text is taken from Cornhuskers, 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, Joliet, in Cornhuskers (1918), text of Wikisource, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sandburg-cornhuskers/joliet.html, id L29053.
Form and metre
Joliet is 18 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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.
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. Read against iambic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| On the one hand the steel works. | 7 | ······· |
| On the other hand the penitentiary. | 11 | ··/˘···˘/˘˘ |
| Sante Fé trains and Alton trains | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| Between smokestacks on the west | 7 | ··/···· |
| And gray walls on the east. | 6 | ······ |
| And Lockport down the river. | 7 | ·/···/˘ |
| Part of the valley is God's. | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| And part is man's. | 4 | ···· |
| The river course laid out | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| A thousand years ago. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| The canals ten years back. | 6 | ·˘/··· |
| The sun on two canals and one river | 10 | ····˘/··/˘ |
| Makes three stripes of silver | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Or copper and gold | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| Or shattered sunflower leaves. | 7 | ·/˘/·˘· |
| Talons of an iceberg | 6 | /˘··/˘ |
| Scraped out this valley. | 5 | ···/˘ |
| Claws of an avalanche loosed here. | 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.