Carl Sandburg lived from 1878 to 1967, so he comes into recent times.
He was the son of an immigrant Swedish blacksmith in Illinois. He was
an
active populist and socialist. He was a journalist and forfigure in the
Chicago renaissance. Another famous populist is Huey P Long. The
populist
associate themselves with the masses. They talk about the needs of the
people. They believe that the country is not just here for the wealthy,
it is here for everybody. During the depression this struck a chord
since
25%-35% of Americans were without a job. Everyone else was struggling
along.
Populists were seen as rabble-rousers who wanted to support the common
man against corporate interest, and rich people.
And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street, cash and collateral turned ashes . . . in the dust, in the cool tombs.
Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May, did she wonder? does she remember? . . . in the dust, in the cool tombs?
Take any streetful of people buying clothes and groceries, cheering a hero or throwing confetti and blowing tin horns . . . tell me if the lovers are losers . . . tell me if any get more than the lovers . . . in the dust . . . in the cool tombs.
Like the poem "Grass," this poem considers the peace that death
brings.
Whenever we die, the passions that ruled our lives die with us.
The
theme is that death is not a horror, but a rest. English 202 is a
horror.
He writes about his home town of Chicago. The long lines are
reminiscent
of Whitman. He celebrates the things that are not normally celebrated
in
poetry. The first line in Chicago is about killing pigs. We have the
pig-butchers.
His city is a city of the blue collar, a city that celebrates being
blue
collar. Some of that still exists in the USA. After Jesse
"the
Body" Ventura was elected governor of Minnisota in 1998, bumper stickers
around the state proclaimed, "My governor can pile drive your
governor."
Whitman & Sandburg would be proud.
Hog Butcher for the World,This is the nickname for Chicago; he celebrates that it is lower class. It is not like Boston, thinking it is better than everyone. It is the city that works. This is the crossroads of the great lakes and the railroads. In the time of Lincoln this was a little village, that grew up overnight. It burned in the great fire and they rebuilt it with more of a plan, and included some of the great skyscrapers. He goes on..
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teethChicago is a young city. A fresh new frontier in the great lakes. This was where people were attracted from the farms around. The urban movement and immigration was going on at the time.
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs
The fog comesWhen you say something is something else in poetry it is called a metaphor. The fog is a cat. He is comparing the for to the cat, saying that it slips in quietly, like the fog.
on little cat feet.
It sits lookingAgain, this is like the cat. The cat comes in, stares at you for a little while, then leaves. So it with the fog. There is controlling metaphor that the for is a cat, although he never says it is.
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
Pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
2 years, 10 years, and the passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
This is also similar to Whitman, whose grass was recycling us. Many
of our rituals surrounding death tend to deny this of delay it, such as
embalming. In reality, nature tries to recycle us. In some cultures
there
is more comfort with this. The Himalayas have the sky burials, where
they
allow the vultures to eat you. He says that the grass recycles and
heals
us.
Waterloo is where Napoleon met his great defeat. It has been almost 200 yearsPile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo
Shovel them under and let me work
I am the grass, I cover all.
This is from the civil war, and is also where his hero, Abraham Lincoln spoke in the Gettysburg Address. At the time, bodies were still being interred & the scars of battle were quite visible. By 1918, it is grown over with grass. Now developers are trying to build a mall there.And Pile them high at Gettysburg.
This is from W.W.I. These have just happened. What has happened yesterday will eventually be in our minds as things that happened hundreds of years ago. This is a very American view of history. Some cultures see things that happened hundreds of years ago as things that happened yesterday. They nurse wounds centuries old. When some of those same people immigrated to America, they were quickly told to leave that stuff in the old country.Pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
The battle scars of war will be healed over and people will not remember will took place here. He is not saying that the events have no meaning, but that the emotional scars that come with death will be healed by time.2 years, 10 years, and the passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass
Let me work.