Criticism > Poetry > Sandburg, Carl - Charles H. Compton (essay date 1929)

Sandburg, Carl - Charles H. Compton (essay date 1929)

Charles H. Compton (essay date 1929)

SOURCE: Compton, Charles H. “Who Reads Carl Sandburg?” South Atlantic Quarterly 28, no. 2 (April 1929): 190-200.

[In the following essay, Compton collects responses to Sandburg's works from a number of ordinary readers.]

Ten years ago the critics had their fling at Sandburg. Today he is accepted. Anthologies of modern verse include him—some with due praise, others without enthusiasm. What about the general reader, the gentle reader, the man in the street, the flapper, flaming youth? Are they reading him? Where will you find them, that we may ask them? They are all represented among the users of the modern public library, today the most democratic, and as yet the freest and least restrained agency in placing the fruits of knowledge, (the good and the evil, shall we say) before the people. It is for them to choose—the detective story for the tired business man, the good sweet story for the good...

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