Chicago (poem)

Chicago is a poem by Carl Sandburg, about the city of Chicago, Illinois. Sandburg first published the poem in 1916 in a book he called Chicago Poems.

Related Topics:
Poem - Carl Sandburg - Chicago, Illinois - 1916

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Sandburg moved to Chicago in 1912, after living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he had served as secretary to Emil Seidel, Milwaukee's Socialist mayor. Harriet Monroe, a fellow resident of Chicago, had recently founded Poetry at around this time. Monroe liked and encouraged Sandburg's plain-speaking free verse style, strongly reminiscent of Walt Whitman. The 1916 Chicago Poems established Sandburg as a major figure in contemporary literature.

Related Topics:
1912 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin - Emil Seidel - Socialist - Mayor - Harriet Monroe - Poetry - Free verse - Walt Whitman

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The Chicago Poems, and its follow-up volumes of verse, Cornhuskers (1918) and Smoke and Steel (1920) represent Sandburg's attempts to found a U.S. version of social realism, writing expansive verse in praise of American agriculture and industry. All of these tendencies are manifest in Chicago itself. Then, as now, Chicago was a hub of commodities trading, and a key financial center for agricultural markets. The city was also a center of the meat-packing industry, and an important railroad hub; these industries are also mentioned in the poem.

Related Topics:
1918 - 1920 - U.S. - Social realism - Agriculture - Industry - Commodities trading - Meat-packing - Railroad

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HOG Butcher for the World,

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Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

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Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;

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Stormy, husky, brawling,

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City of the Big Shoulders:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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:

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Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

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Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;

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Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,

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Bareheaded,

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Shoveling,

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Wrecking,

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Planning,

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Building, breaking, rebuilding,

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

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Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,

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Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,

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Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,

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Laughing!

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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.

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