Cardell

=Carl Sandburg =

Carl Sandburg was born in 1878 the son of a Swedish immigrant in Galesburg, Ill. Sandburg was one of the most read American poets in the 1920s and 1930s. His poems sought to celebrate the working class, and were written outside of formal poetic structure so the masses could better understand them.

"Chicago" [[image:Chicago.jpg width="200" height="145"]]
// 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; // // Fierece as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a // // savage pitted against the wilderness, // // Barehedeaded, // // 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 the Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation. //

Sandburg begins the poem by describing a few of the things that Chicago was known for at the beginning of the 20th century, hog butchers, tool makers, wheat stackers, and railroad workers. Sandburg then acknowledges the existence of prostitution, corruption, and violence in the city with his answers to the comments “They tell me you are wicked…and they tell me you are crooked…and they tell me you are brutal.” Sandburg then defends the city by asking the reader if they had ever seen another city that was as proud to be who they were. Sandburg describes the city as “fierce as a dog” and “cunning as a savage” Sandburg then describes the city as a worker covered in soot and laughing, proud to be the butchers, stackers, tool makers, and freight handlers of the nation.

Sandburg uses little formal rhythm and no rhyming in the poem “Chicago.” It is written in a clear way using common vernacular to be easily read by the public. “Chicago” is a poetic celebration of the workingman. Sandburg uses personification to describe the city as a worker itself. Describing the city as “Bareheaded, shoveling, wrecking, etc.” Sandburg uses personification to create the image of the city as a dusty young worker laughing at the world.

This poem is written for the common American. During the early 20th century poetry was mostly for the elite and educated parts of society. Sandburg wrote this poem for the people that it was about, the working class. Too often the labor of the workingman go unknown, unappreciated, or uncelebrated. Workingmen and workingwomen are even looked down upon by a society that is completely dependent on their efforts. “Chicago” celebrates these mocked professions and portrays the pride that the workers should feel for their trade.

"Grass" [[image:grass06072006.sized.jpg width="192" height="144"]]
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel under and let me work— I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now?

I am the grass. Let me work.

Sandburg begins this poem with mentioning two battles from the Napoleonic Wars. The first, Austerlitz, was a major victory for the French Empire under Emperor Napoleon. Napoleon’s army defeated a Russo-Austrian army, marking the end of the Third Coalition. The second battle, Waterloo, is one of the most famous military exchanges in history, as it saw the defeat of Napoleon and the end of the French Empire. In the next line Sandburg says to shovel the bodies from the battle under the grass so that it may work to cover them. The next battle Sandburg mentions in the poem is the Battle of Gettysburg, a famous battle in the American Civil War that many regard to be the beginning of the end for the Confederate States. The next two battles mentioned are from the First World War. The first, Ypres, was a significant victory for the Allied Forces against the German Empire, but both sides endured heavy casualties. The final battle mentioned in the poem, the Battle of Verdun, was the longest and one of the most devastating battles in human history. By the end of the fighting the French and Germans had fired 40 million artillery shells at each other and amassed a total of 250,000 battlefield deaths, and 500,000 wounded. Sandburg ends the poem with a passenger on a train years later asking where they were.

Sandburg wrote “Grass” with the grass as the narrative voice. The grass is saying to bury the bodies of those fallen in battle so that it may grow over and hide what had happened. The battles listed were in chronological order, the earliest being at the beginning of the 19th century and the latest being at the beginning of the 20th century. The moral of the story is that humanity forgets the terribleness of war so easily because the bodies vanish, and the battlefields are covered back over with grass. Since war is so easily forgotten it is repeated again and again.

This poem shows how those that neglect history are doomed to repeat it. It also shows how eternal the earth and nature is compared to the lives of humans. Wars are waged and battles fought, but in a few years the grass reclaims the land.

= H. D. (Hilda Doolittle) = Hilda Doolittle was born in Bethlehem, Penn in 1886 to an astronomer, her father, and a musician, her mother. First published in 1913 under the pen name H.D., Doolittle was one of the founders of the "imagist movement." A poetic movement that involved use of imagery to convey meaning in a poetry

"Helen" [[image:Helen.jpg width="195" height="179"]]
All Greece hates the still eyes in the white face the lustre as of olives where she stands, and the white hands.

All Greece reviles the wan face when she smiles, hating it deeper still when it grows wan and white, remembering past enchantments and past ills.

Greece sees unmoved, God’s daughter, born of love, the beauty of cool feet and slenderest knees, could love indeed the maid, only if she were laid, white ash amid funeral cypresses.

Doolittle starts the poem by stating that “All of Greece hates” Helen, the wife of the Spartan king Menelaus who left him for the Trojan prince Paris. Helen was known for her incredible beauty, which Doolittle begins to describe. The next stanza the poem continues to affirm Greece’s animosity towards Helen, while still describing her beauty. The poem includes that the Greeks remember the past enchantments that Helen’s beauty held over them, but that they also remember her betrayal. The final stanza identifies Helen as the daughter of a god. Specifically Helen was thought to be the daughter of Zeus, the god of thunder, who raped Helen’s mother Leda while he was in the form of a great swan. The poem continues to describe Helen’s beauty then concludes by saying that Greece could only love her again if she lay in a funeral pyre.

“Helen” is written to display the conflicting thoughts the Greeks had of the infamous maiden. The Greeks hate her because she broke her marriage with a Greek king to be with Greece’s enemy Troy. The poem also shows that they are still entranced by her beauty. The stanzas begin with a statement of hatred or revile yet they seem to be unable to stop themselves from continuing to speak of her beauty. By the end of the poem it is evident that the Greeks’ anger is only consolable with her death.

This poem addresses something that Homer did not in his epic “The Illiad,” that is what the Greeks as a whole thought of the wayward maiden. “Helen” shows that Greece as a whole stood behind her kings with a similar anger at the betrayal. The poem also answers the question of what would happen when they finally reclaimed her. Death.

=Marianne Moore =

"The Paper Nautilus" [[image:Nautilus.jpg width="220" height="149"]]
For authorities whose hopes are shaped by mercenaries? Writers entrapped by teatime fame and by commuters' comforts? Not for these the paper nautilus constructs her thin glass shell.

Giving her perishable souvenir of hope, a dull white outside and smooth- edged inner surface glossy as the sea, the watchful maker of it guards it day and night; she scarcely

eats until the eggs are hatched. Buried eight-fold in her eight arms, for she is in a sense a devil- fish, her glass ram'shorn-cradled freight is hid but is not crushed; as Hercules, bitten

by a crab loyal to the hydra, was hindered to succeed, the intensively watched eggs coming from the shell free it when they are freed,-- leaving its wasp-nest flaws of white on white, and close-

laid Ionic chiton-folds like the lines in the mane of a Parthenon horse, round which the arms had wound themselves as if they knew love is the only fortress strong enough to trust to

Literally “The Paper Nautilus” is about how the female paper nautilus, a species of Argonaut, tends to her offspring. The poem begins by asking the reader who it was the nautilus built its shell for. The poem claims that the animal creates its decorative casing not for “authorities who hopes are shaped by mercenaries” or “writers entrapped by teatime fame.” The nautilus constructs its shell to protect the vulnerable eggs that grow within it. The poem describes how the female nautilus rarely eats while protecting her brood, and that she watches diligently until they are hatched.

While Moore’s poem “The Glass Nautilus” is literally about the rearing habits of a mollusk, its deeper meaning is in the last lines of the poem “Love is the only fortress strong enough to trust to.” Moore uses the chiton shell of the nautilus as a metaphor for the strength of love, and the altruistic way that the mother protects her eggs as a symbol for the love of a child. In the first stanza Moore gives examples of shallow men that do not deserve the effort the mother nautilus gives her eggs. The entrapped writers and authorities sought hollow refuge in fame and power, while the simple nautilus knew the strength of its love. The poem also frequently references Greek mythology. In the third stanza the strength of the shell is compared to that of Hercules when he battled the hydra, a many-headed sea monster. The reference to the hydra is specifically significant as the nautilus itself has eight arms and resembles the beast that Hercules slayed. The poem later references the Parthenon, a great temple made of white marble. The shell of the nautilus is pure white, like the marble of the Parthenon, with lines that resembles the fluting of the columns. This comparison links the nautilus, an ancient creature that looks to be more at common to the fauna of the Pleistocene era, to the ancient cultures of our past.

This poem resounded with me because of its nautical elements and imagery. The nautilus is a very ancient organism. The power of love is equally ancient. The fleeting things mentioned in the first stanza, power and fame, do not last, but love, like the shell of a paper nautilus can last forever.

=Countee Cullen =

"Incident" [[image:Bus.jpg width="200" height="150"]]
Once riding in old Baltimore, Heart-filled, head-filled with glee, I saw a Baltimorean Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”

I saw the whole of Baltimore From May until December; Of all the things that happened there That’s all that I remember.

“Incident” recounts a memory that Cullen has of visiting Baltimore as a child in the beginning of the 20th century. At the time racial division and prejudice were still deeply ingrained. In the first stanza Cullen describes how excited he felt while riding through Baltimore. The second stanza begins with him describing the encounter he had with the young boy he saw. Cullen describes the other child as “no whit bigger” than himself at the time, so Cullen smiled to him. The other boy responded by sticking out his tongue and calling Cullen a “Nigger.” In the final stanza Cullen explains that he visited Baltimore for over half a year, but the only part he remembers from his time there was the encounter he had with the young boy.

The poem “Incident” clearly shows the emotional effect racism has on the recipients. Cullen spent seven months of his life touring Baltimore as a child, yet the only part he remembers is when another young boy made a racist remark to him. The poem also has the emotional impact on the reader of demonstrating the result of a racist upbringing. Most stories of racial injustice involve adults acting out on other adults. While still terrible, the act of injustice is lessened slightly by the fact that the parties involved were adults that had at some point made the conscious decision to act out against someone of a different race. The encounter in “Incident” is different because it involved a child acting out against another child. We like to think of children as being innocent of the sins of adults, but the offending child clearly understood the meaning of the slur and its purpose as an insult to someone whose only offense was having darker skin.

Living in the modern era we still hear frequent stories of racial injustice from decades past, and less frequently from the current times. This poem was written in a time of great racial divide but the clear impact that racism had on Cullen’s life is undeniably applicable to today as well. The fact that this encounter was between two children is another reminder that in order to enact a worldwide change in thought, we must raise our children to be better than ourselves.