Carl Sandburg was a highly popular twentieth-century American poet and biographer of Abraham Lincoln, perhaps best known for the opening lines of two of his early poems, the gentle and impressionistic “Fog”, and the contrastingly harsh “Chicago”: the latter beginning “Hog Butcher for the World,/ Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat”, whereas the former begins “The fog comes/ on little cat feet”.
Often coupled with his contemporary Robert Frost as the two quintessentially American poets of the mid-century, both being popular and rugged, accessible and able to speak for and about ordinary Americans, Sandburg became a beloved celebrity in his later years, as much for his folksy demeanour when performing in public – reciting his poems, singing old folk songs to the accompaniment of a
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Citation: Goldfarb, Sheldon. "Carl Sandburg". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 December 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3926, accessed 21 November 2024.]
