Sandburg, Carl - Chris Beyers (essay date 1995)

Chris Beyers (essay date 1995)

SOURCE: Beyers, Chris. “Carl Sandburg's Unnatural Relations.” Essays in Literature 22, no. 1 (spring 1995): 97-112.

[In the following essay, Beyers links Chicago Poems to poetic tradition, observing that in many cases Sandburg modernized older forms in his verse.]

Carl Sandburg, Bernard Duffey has remarked, “is something of an institution” (295). Indeed, by the time of his death, Sandburg had reached the level of cultural icon—so much so that a list of his activities and honors tells a story of American cultural history, 1940-1969. It's not just his two Pulitzer Prizes (one in 1940 for Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, the other in 1950 for Complete Poems) and numerous honorary degrees. There's a picture of his reading to Congress with Sam Rayburn and Richard Nixon looking on, and another of him looking on while Elizabeth Taylor reads what presumably is his contribution to...

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