Chicago Poems
{{short description|Book by Carl Sandburg}}
{{infobox book |
| name = Chicago Poems
| image = Carl Sandburg, Chicago Poems, cover.jpg
| caption = First edition
| author = Carl Sandburg
| illustrator =
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| country =
| language = English
| series =
| genre = Poetry
| published = 1916 (Henry Holt)
| english_release_date =
| media_type = Print
| pages =
| isbn =
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Chicago Poems is a 1916 collection of poetry by Carl Sandburg, his first by a mainstream publisher.
Inspiration, publication, and reception
Sandburg moved to Chicago in 1912 after living in Milwaukee, where he had served as secretary to Emil Seidel, Milwaukee's Socialist mayor. Harriet Monroe, a fellow resident of Chicago, had recently founded the magazine Poetry at around this time. Monroe liked and encouraged Sandburg's plain-speaking free verse style, strongly reminiscent of Walt Whitman.
Sandburg sent his manuscript to Alfred Harcourt, then a junior-ranking editor at Henry Holt. Facing opposition from above, Harcourt removed and censored—with Sandburg's co-operation—the harsher poems. For example, the direct criticism of "Billy Sunday" by name, previously published in The Masses and International Socialist Review,{{cite journal|journal=The International Socialist Review|title=Billy Sunday|last=Sandburg|first=Carl|year=1915|pages=152–3|volume=XVI|number=3|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9VJIAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA152}} was replaced with the more tepid and anonymous "To a Contemporary Bunkshooter".{{cite book|chapter=Introduction|title=Billy Sunday and Other Poems|url=https://archive.org/details/billysundayother00sand|url-access=registration|last=Sandburg|first=Carl|editor1-last=Hendrik|editor2-last=Hendrik|editor1-first=George|editor2-first=Willene|publisher=Harcourt Brace & Company|year=1993|pages=xi–xii}}{{cite journal|title=Taming the Socialist: Carl Sandburg's Chicago Poems and its Critics|journal=American Literature|last=Van Wienen|first=Mark|volume=63|issue=1|date=March 1991|pages=89–103|publisher=Duke University Press|doi=10.2307/2926563|jstor=2926563}}, pp. 99–101.Harcourt would soon found his own publishing firm, and Sandburg would later publish with Harcourt Brace.
Chicago Poems established Sandburg as a major figure in contemporary literature.{{cite journal|authorlink=Harriet Monroe|journal=Poetry|title=Chicago Granite:Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg|last=Monroe|first=Harriet|volume=8|issue=2|date=May 1916|pages=90–93|jstor=20570797}} Chicago Poems, and its follow-up volumes of verse, Cornhuskers (1918) and Smoke and Steel (1920) represent Sandburg's attempts to found an American version of social realism, writing expansive verse in praise of American agriculture and industry.
Poems included
Further reading
{{Portal|Chicago}}
- {{cite book|title=Billy Sunday and Other Poems|url=https://archive.org/details/billysundayother00sand|url-access=registration|last=Sandburg|first=Carl|editor1-last=Hendrik|editor2-last=Hendrik|editor1-first=George|editor2-first=Willene|publisher=Harcourt Brace & Company|year=1993}}
- {{cite journal|title=The Limited American, the Great Loneliness, and the Singing Fire: Carl Sandburg's "Chicago Poems"|last=Alexander|first=William|journal=American Literature|publisher=Duke University Press|jstor=2924539|volume=45|issue=1|date=March 1973|pages=67–83|doi=10.2307/2924539}}
- {{cite journal|title=Taming the Socialist: Carl Sandburg's Chicago Poems and its Critics|journal=American Literature|last=Van Wienen|first=Mark|volume=63|issue=1|date=March 1991|pages=89–103|publisher=Duke University Press|doi=10.2307/2926563|jstor=2926563}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{wikisource-inline|single=true}}
- [http://www.bartleby.com/165/ Chicago Poems at Bartleby]
- {{librivox book | title=Chicago Poems | author=Sandburg}}
{{Carl Sandburg}}
{{Authority control}}
Category:American poetry collections