Chicago
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.
Commentary
from ‘the chicago poems’, published 1916.
this poem was submitted as an entry for a poetry competition organized by the chicago town hall in 1910; it won first prize, and sandburg’s career as a poet had begun.
i like it for its rhythm and energy. the contrast with european poetry of the same period is remarkable. this is a poem that breathes fire.
sandburg’s poetic style is an excellent example of the vigorous american tradition of free verse, starting with whitman and moving on through ginsberg and dylan. forceful poems like ‘chicago’ were like a breath of fresh air to pound and eliot (the architects of the poetic revolution of the 1920s), inspiring them to break the shackles of victorian prosody and cut through the insipidity of the georgians with their own distinct voice.
— Thomas
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Chitra Publishing Division LAICO · 25 May 1999
Hi thomas,
Good to hear you can use some of that stuff.
Here are two more if you like.
1. Chicago - Carl Sandburg
Unabashed,exuberant verse spilling over with the Whitmanesque sentiment of ‘I celebrate myself’- only here the ‘self’’ is Chicago. Sandburg’s Chicago that will not deign to disguise her vices or be shamed into silence by her coarseness. The ‘Hog Butcher’ part hurt his more genteel readers some, but it was near impossible to remain totally disapproving in the face of such irresistible buoyancy.Here is working-class America glamorized by the flash of white teeth in a dirt-grimed face. Sandburg was one of those poets who effected a clean break with traditional rhythmical forms. By unexpected turns this man shouts, sings- or just speaks. He writes into the beginnings of modern industrialism a brave,laughing,reckless kind of Beauty that I find difficult to ignore.
2. The Cool Web - Robert Graves
I think it’s that phrase- ‘the cool web’- that drew me to this poem. It’s so suggestive of something fragile,clinging and inescapable. That a poet would choose such an image to represent language is kind of intriguing. Subtly seems to imply that poetry too is a safety valve, yet another means of distancing oneself from any intensity of emotion.I like the economy with which he conjures up in succession the searing heat of day, the disturbing scent of the rose,the black vise of night-time fears, and the taste of death that comes with the soldiers.There’s the hopelessness of the no-win situation here.You’ve either the icy indifference of ‘sea-green’ murkiness, or the plunge into death-bound insanity.
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I don’t quite know how this guest poems thing works, so if I’m supposed to stop pestering you with submissions some time just holler Whoa-or something. Am I enjoying your fare?
I thrive on it.
Looking forward to the next Hundred,
Pavithra
David Coulthart · 29 January 2000
Our Book Club (>over 10 years old now, Princeton area) is doing a session on poetry next month. “Chicago” is one that I am sharing as a favorite. In comments on your site, you contrast Sandburg’s style with that of European poets of the time. Since I am not knowledgeable in this area, could you suggest a good example that I could share alongside Sandburg?
EEN