Guest Author - Jordan McCollum

Carl Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1878. His young life was a patchwork of disjointed experiences that provided not only fodder for his later works, but insight into many aspects and ways of life. At the age of 13, he dropped out of school and worked odd jobs to help support his struggling family. At the age of twenty, he enlisted in the military to serve in Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War.

Upon returning home, Sandburg enrolled in West Point, but quickly transferred to Lombard College. However, he left the college in 1902 without a degree. After leaving college, he became involved in the socialist party, and was even secretary to Milwaukee Mayor Emil Seidel, the first socialist mayor in the United States.

In 1908 he married Lilian Steichen. They moved to Chicago in 1913, where Sandburg worked for the Chicago Daily Sun. His experiences there influenced much of his later writing. Their family, which would include three daughters, eventually settled the mountains of North Carolina in 1945 at an estate named Connemara.

Sandburg published his first work in 1904, a volume of poetry entitled In Reckless Ecstasy. From then until his death in 1967, Sandburg was to publish more than fifty volumes in genres ranging from poetry to prose to children’s stories, from autobiographies to biographies to film critiques, from folk songs to essays to letters.

Notable among his many works were his Pulitzer Prize winners: Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, part of a six-volume series on the president which is still seen as his definitive biography, and his Complete Poems. Sandburg received many other awards for his writing, including a Grammy Award for his performance of Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait (with the New York Philharmonic).

In all of his works, Sandburg strove to celebrate that which was uniquely American, from its agricultural roots to its industrial growth. His free verse poetry recalls the freedom of the American spirit. Sandburg didn’t allow himself to be tied down to any particular poetic form or genre—he used whatever means necessary to express himself.

Sandburg died in 1967.

Sources:
Wikipedia
Poets.org

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Read Carl Sandburg’s Pulitzer-winning volume of poetry, The Complete Poetry of Carl Sandburg.

Or try his similarly acclaimed biography of Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years