Carl Sandburg, poet

American Minute ^ | July 22, 2019 | Bill Federer

[Perseverando]

"I see America, not in the setting sun of a black night of despair ahead of us,

I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning, creative hand of God.

I see great days ahead, great days possible to men and women of will and vision,"

stated poet Carl Sandburg in an interview with Frederick Van Ryn of This Week Magazine (January 4, 1953, p. 11.)

Carl Sandburg was born on January 6, 1878, to Swedish immigrants who worked on the railroad.

After 8th grade, Carl Sandburg left school, borrowed his father's railroad pass, and traveled the country as a hobo.

Carl Sandburg volunteered for military service, was sent to Puerto Rico in the Spanish-American War, and then attended college on a veteran's bill.

Carl Sandburg wrote children's fairytales, called Rootabaga Stories, and mused of his wanderings in American Songbag.

Carl Sandburg wrote in Remembrance Rock (1948, ch. 2, p. 7 ):

"A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on."

He continued:

"A baby, whether it does anything to you, represents life.

If a bad fire should break out in this house and I had my choice of saving the library or the babies, I would save what is alive.

Never will a time come when the most marvelous recent invention is as marvelous as a newborn baby.

The finest of our precision watches, the most super-colossal of our supercargo plants, don't compare with a newborn baby in the number and ingenuity of coils and springs, in the flow and change of chemical solutions, in timing devices and interrelated parts that are irreplaceable.

A baby is very modern. Yet it is also the oldest of the ancients. A baby doesn't know he is a hoary and venerable antique

[Perseverando]

Once again, it's time for an American Minute history lesson.

[leaning conservative]

I read a poem of his at my father’s funeral.

[YogicCowboy]

True pro-life sentiments.

[Albion Wilde]

Time changes things. His pro-life sentiments were of a time when abortion was completely unthinkable; yet he was more than a little bit leftist in his day and even joined the Socialist Democrat party. His folk songs were the inspiration for the Joan Baez - Pete Seeger era. His work was a secular romanticization of the images of American life in the days before color magazines, movies and television.

Self-made and scantily educated, even his popular biographies of Lincoln were more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sandburglike today's historical fiction movie scripts, According to his Wikipedia page:

Sandburg's works on Lincoln also brought substantial criticism. William E. Barton, who had published a Lincoln biography in 1925, wrote that Sandburg's book "is not history, is not even biography" because of its lack of original research and uncritical use of evidence, but Barton nevertheless thought it was "real literature and a delightful and important contribution to the ever-lengthening shelf of really good books about Lincoln." Others criticized Sandburg's failure to document sources and factual errors. Others complain The Prairie Years and The War Years contain too much material that is neither biography nor history and is instead "sentimental poeticizing" by Sandburg.

Hard to tell how far left he would be today; probably a favorite of Democrat special events, PBS and the Kennedy Center.

[Albion Wilde]

Posting error above. Correction: Self-made and scantily educated, even his popular biographies of Lincoln were more like today's historical fiction movie scripts, According to his Wikipedia page: