tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19453374.post9090647922501862416..comments2012-09-19T10:59:21.290-04:00Comments on The Day Carl Sandburg Died: New York buzzed with Carl Sandburg 'Modernist'Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19453374.post-20681468400903677152009-10-15T20:20:22.346-04:002009-10-15T20:20:22.346-04:00I am on the BOD of the Carl Sandburg State Histori...I am on the BOD of the Carl Sandburg State Historic Site at the birthplace home in Galesburg, IL.<br />I have written a number of short biographies and articles on Sandburg. During our annual Carl Sandburg Days Festival I had the honor of meeting his daughter, Helga. <br /><br />I had wondered why Sandburg called his wife "Paula." After hours of research I learned it was a Luxenbourg word meaning "Pussy Cat" finding it was a nick name he likely "Americanized."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19453374.post-2287265862507329982007-04-17T00:25:00.000-04:002007-04-17T00:25:00.000-04:00WHO AM I ?*************I am a Canadian . Today wa...WHO AM I ?<BR/>*************<BR/>I am a Canadian . Today was a tragic day for America and the world. I wish that the likes of Sandburg and Whitman were here to console us all. <BR/><BR/>An engineer and a few other things by training, I do not have and deep or scholarly understanding of poetry, but Carl Sandburg was my favourite poet in the 60’s . I bought his “complete works” while working at Bell Labs in NJ ! Througout my life I followed his advice and “tied my hat to the saddle” and rode.. rode …rode .. through life.<BR/><BR/>Last night a nephew sent me a recent photograph of two deer with their heads down, in the gloaming, munching on tall brown wintered grass on the back acreage of his country property. I did my best to transform his image into fine art and then searched Bartlett for a Sandburg Poem with the word “deer”. My first find was uplifting, and so I framed a poster with the deer and these rediscovered Sandburg lines (keyword deer omitted!). <BR/><BR/> “…Have you seen a red sunset drip over one of my cornfields,<BR/> the shore of night stars, the wave lines of dawn up a wheat valley?<BR/>Have you heard my threshing crews yelling in the chaff of a strawpile <BR/>and the running wheat of the wagonboards, my cornhuskers, <BR/>my harvest hands hauling crops, singing dreams of women, worlds, horizons?…”<BR/><BR/>Throughout today I wondered how and where Sandburg travelled to visualize and create such beautiful word images. Then, as midnight approached Goggle took me to your Sandburg site where I reviewed the video clips from New York. <BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>WHO IS CARL SANDBUG ?<BR/>**************************<BR/>The Youtube snaps indicated that he was many things to many people: but if my recall is correct, clip selections did not talk about the great humanity, warmth, wholesomeness, joy, crispness, or great expectations that Sandburg called us to witness, deliver, share or dream about. The above lines from Prairie do all of that for me – and while I was not a cornhusker, I wanted to be transported to their fields, I wanted to see their sunsets and their night stars. <BR/><BR/>A few days ago it stuck me that perhaps we cannot really share the glow and feeling that we have about a Sandburg poem. Indeed, the more analysis that I do of any poem (e.g. Arnold’s , Dover Moon), the more I age and lose the innocence of my first encounter. So, I do not attempt to analyse my favourites anymore. .<BR/><BR/><BR/>Thank you for stirring this wanderlust.<BR/>**************************************************<BR/>I too love Sandburg’s gifts. On occasion and when required it has been both a quiet place and an inspiration.<BR/><BR/>Regards, <BR/><BR/>Howard Leigh<BR/>Ottawa, Ontario <BR/><BR/>PS: <BR/>My 1996 website has been moth balled !Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com