Chicago, a poem by Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg was an American poet, writer, and editor who won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. He was widely regarded as "a major figure in contemporary literature", especially for volumes of his collected verse, including Chicago Poems (1916), Cornhuskers (1918), and Smoke and Steel (1920). Sandburg composed his poetry primarily in free verse. "Poetry is a pack-sack of invisible keepsakes. Poetry is a sky dark with a wild-duck migration. A few of his definitions of poetry: Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment." His success as a poet was limited to that of a follower of Whitman and of the Imagists. 

Today we are featuring his poem, Chicago.

Chicago

By Carl Sandburg

Hog Butcher for the World, 

Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, 

Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; 

Stormy, husky, brawling, 

City of the Big Shoulders: 

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I 

have seen your painted women under the gas lamps 

luring the farm boys. 

And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it 

is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to 

kill again. 

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the 

faces of women and children I have seen the marks 

of wanton hunger. 

And having answered so I turn once more to those who 

sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer 

and say to them: 

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing 

so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning. 

Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on 

job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the 

little soft cities; 

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning 

as a savage pitted against the wilderness, 

Bareheaded, 

Shoveling, 

Wrecking, 

Planning, 

Building, breaking, rebuilding, 

Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with 

white teeth, 

Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young 

man laughs, 

Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has 

never lost a battle, 

Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, 

and under his ribs the heart of the people, 

Laughing! 

Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of 

Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog 

Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with 

Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.