Poem Sampler
From the Archive: Carl Sandburg
Poems that honor the American experience, first published in Poetry magazine.
BY The Editors
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders...
—Carl Sandburg, from “Chicago,” March 1914
Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) was a musician, historian, biographer, fiction writer, and, as he is most well known, a poet. Taking after Whitman, he celebrated the common American experience and was appreciated and read by the masses and scholars alike. He won two Pulitzer prizes, one for his biography of "Abraham Lincoln, and one for his Collected Poems. He once observed: “I'll probably die propped up in bed trying to write a poem about America.”
The editorial staff of the Poetry Foundation. See the Poetry Foundation staff list and editorial team masthead.