Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg was an American poet and biographer of the early twentieth century, known for free verse celebrating working-class life and industrial America.
His poem "Chicago" gave that city its epithet "City of Big Shoulders." His six-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln won the Pulitzer Prize.
Sandburg also collected American folk songs and wrote children's stories.
Poetry without fixed structure
- imagismPrecise imagery in writing
- vernacularEveryday regional speech
- CornhuskersNebraska residents or teams
- colloquialCasual, everyday language
cadence · plain speech · repetition · oral tradition · lyric · modernist · unrhymed · chant
Chicago's famous moniker
- stockyardsTemporary livestock enclosures
- Lake MichiganThird-largest Great Lake
- skyscrapersExtremely tall urban buildings
- fogLow-lying cloud cover
harbor · railroads · steel mills · slaughterhouses · freight · working class · immigrants · tenements
One who writes lives
- assassinationMurder of a prominent figure
- Civil WarCountrymen fighting countrymen
- emancipationRelease from legal bondage
- GettysburgPennsylvania battle site
Springfield · log cabin · presidency · slavery · Union · Pulitzer Prize · definitive · archival
Open grassy flatland
- MidwestNorth-central American region
- democracyRule by the people
- common peopleNon-elite members of society
- populismPolitics favoring ordinary citizens
immigrant experience · working class · frontier · heartland · cornfields · railroads · industrialization · melting pot
Narrative verse set to music
- folksongsCommunal heritage music
- guitarFretted stringed instrument
- spiritualsEnslaved people's sacred songs
- work songsMusic accompanying manual labor
cowboy songs · Appalachian · collecting · troubadour · performance · oral tradition · recordings · banjo
free verse
Poetry without fixed structure
- imagismPrecise imagery in writing
- vernacularEveryday regional speech
- CornhuskersNebraska residents or teams
colloquial · cadence · plain speech · repetition · oral tradition · lyric · modernist · unrhymed · chant · incantation
Windy City
Chicago's famous moniker
- stockyardsTemporary livestock enclosures
- Lake MichiganThird-largest Great Lake
- skyscrapersExtremely tall urban buildings
fog · harbor · railroads · steel mills · slaughterhouses · freight · working class · immigrants · tenements · South Side
biographer
One who writes lives
- assassinationMurder of a prominent figure
- Civil WarCountrymen fighting countrymen
- emancipationRelease from legal bondage
Gettysburg · Springfield · log cabin · presidency · slavery · Union · Pulitzer Prize · definitive · archival · portraiture
prairie
Open grassy flatland
- MidwestNorth-central American region
- democracyRule by the people
- common peopleNon-elite members of society
populism · immigrant experience · working class · frontier · heartland · cornfields · railroads · industrialization · melting pot · egalitarian
ballads
Narrative verse set to music
- folksongsCommunal heritage music
- guitarFretted stringed instrument
- spiritualsEnslaved people's sacred songs
work songs · cowboy songs · Appalachian · collecting · troubadour · performance · oral tradition · recordings · banjo · field recordings