Chicago Poems

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Chicago Poems
Carl Sandburg, Chicago Poems, cover.jpg
First edition
Author Carl Sandburg
LanguageEnglish
Genre Poetry
Published1916 (Henry Holt)
Media typePrint

Chicago Poems is a 1916 collection of poetry by Carl Sandburg, his first by a mainstream publisher.

Contents

Inspiration, publication, and reception

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 censoredwith Sandburg's co-operationthe harsher poems. For example, the direct criticism of "Billy Sunday" by name, previously published in The Masses and International Socialist Review , [1] was replaced with the more tepid and anonymous "To a Contemporary Bunkshooter". [2] [3] [4]

Chicago Poems established Sandburg as a major figure in contemporary literature. [5] 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.

Poems included

Further reading

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References

  1. Sandburg, Carl (1915). "Billy Sunday". The International Socialist Review. XVI (3): 152–3.
  2. Sandburg, Carl (1993). "Introduction". In Hendrik, George; Hendrik, Willene (eds.). Billy Sunday and Other Poems . Harcourt Brace & Company. pp. xi–xii.
  3. Van Wienen, Mark (March 1991). "Taming the Socialist: Carl Sandburg's Chicago Poems and its Critics". American Literature. Duke University Press. 63 (1): 89–103. doi:10.2307/2926563. JSTOR   2926563., pp. 99101.
  4. Harcourt would soon found his own publishing firm, and Sandburg would later publish with Harcourt Brace.
  5. Monroe, Harriet (May 1916). "Chicago Granite:Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg". Poetry. 8 (2): 90–93. JSTOR   20570797.