Carl Sandburg Poems

Some of Carl Sandburg's poems are: Under a Telephone Pole, Fog, Flux, Monotone, Back Yard, Child Moon, Baby Face, Goldwing Moth, Prayers of Steel, Improved Farmland, Primer Lesson, Baby Toes, Basket, Five Cent Balloons, Good Night, Harvest Sunset, Languages, Manual System, People Who Must, Potomac Town in February, Sea-Wash, Summer Stars, and Chicago. I will write about some of these.

"Under a Telephone Pole" is a poem in which the author speaks of a telephone wire as if he was it. As a telephone wire he hummed and thrummed, he sent news about love and war and money the fighting and the tears and work and want. He also says that the death and laughter of men and women passed through him.  The wire worked all the time, whether it was rainy or dry, night or day.

"Fog" is a poem in which Carl Sandburg describes fog as if it were a cat that walked into town and sat on its haunches while looking at the city and the harbor. After it looked around the fog would "walk" away into the distance.

"Prayers of Steel" is a poem in which Carl Sandburg tells the story of a steel bar who desperately wants to be forged into a crowbar. The author later says that it also wants to be forged into the support that would hold a skyscraper up.

"Goldwing Moth" is a poem in which the author describes a yellow moth that visited his home each night. In the poem, the author also describes the moth as having wings that are the color of gold.

"Chicago" is a poem in which Carl Sandburg describes the Chicago of his day. Back in Carl's days in Chicago a lot of butchers exported meat all over the world. Many toolmakers and wheat traders furnished the nearby general stores. Overall Chicago was also known to be a bad place because many prostitutes lived there; because it used to be populated by gangsters and poor people who are starving.

"Languages" is a poem in which the author talks about how language is like a river that flows into the sea of other languages. Just like the freshwater of rivers adds richness and variety to the ocean, so does each language add to the world of languages. Some languages survive to this day, some are forgotten, and some are known only by scientists, and some by few others.

These poems that I described I liked the most.