Chicago by Carl Sandburg

First published: 1916, in Chicago Poems

Type of poem: Lyric

The Poem

“Chicago” is a poem in free verse, one without a set meter or rhyme scheme, running twenty-three lines. The title gives the name of the city that the poet is praising, which does not appear elsewhere in the poem. Without the title, this poem could refer to any industrial city, suggesting a universal love of place.

The poem, written in the first person so that the poet addresses the reader directly, celebrates both the virtues and vices of the city. It begins with a staccato list of occupations found in Chicago (hog butcher, tool maker, stacker of wheat), followed by three adjectives that attach an emotion to those occupations. Carl Sandburg calls them “Stormy, husky, brawling,” creating an aura of vitality. This first section of the poem is abrupt and rapid, like the city being portrayed.

The second section departs from the brief phrasing and turns to long, flowing, melodic sentences. Each of the first three sentences acknowledges a vice of the city in the first half of the sentence. It is wicked, corrupt, and brutal. The poet agrees to each accusation, supplying a specific detail that supports the charge in the second half of the sentence. There are “painted women,” “gunmen,” and “wanton hunger.” The city does, in fact, have its failings.

The poet more than accepts the failings of his city, however; he answers in the remaining lines with a list of positive attributes. His city is singing and loud, “proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.” Sandburg celebrates this strength, and it is clear that the vices are a small enough price to pay for the overwhelming vitality and life the city contains.

In the last four lines, an important shift of perspective occurs. The poet personifies the city, saying it laughs as a young man does, laughs “as an ignorant fighter who has never lost a battle.” This suggests a sense of innocence despite the previously mentioned corruption. Only youth laughs and feels confident regardless of circumstances. Only youth swaggers with the assurance of victory. Hence, a sense of immaturity mingles with the confidence and vitality.

The last line repeats the major attributes the poet grants the city. It is laughing, stormy, and proud. This line concludes with the repetition of the poem’s beginning, but as fragments of a single line rather than separate lines. This gives the poem a circular effect, ending right where it began, and creates a sense of closure.

Forms and Devices

Sandburg wrote in free verse, but this does not mean that the poem lacks any structure. The structure supports the subject matter. A poem about a loud, brawling city would hardly be appropriately conveyed in a tightly constructed sonnet. Sandburg sought to capture the mood of the city in the arrangement of the poem’s language.

The short phrases in the first section are simply a list of occupations. This suggests that the city is primarily a place of industry, all efficiency and business. When the second section begins, the lines are long compound sentences that capture the depth of emotion the poet feels. The poet is in awe of the city even as he admits its weaknesses.

Sandburg was greatly influenced by the poetry of Walt Whitman. Both poets wrote of the common man, democratic society, and celebrations of the ordinary rather than the sublime. Sandburg utilizes the free-verse form that Whitman had made so popular in the nineteenth century, but Sandburg owes other debts as well—particularly to the Bible. The repetition of “and” in the first several lines, for example, is distinctly biblical. By using “and” rather than writing sentences with dependent clauses, Sandburg creates the effect that each independent clause is equally important. The poet’s emotions are equally significant regarding the city’s vices and its virtues.

This parallelism is one of the chief poetic devices employed. In addition to the repeated “and,” the use of the “-ing” form of the verbs after line 13 implies that the action is occurring presently. These are the things the city is doing; it is not resting on its laurels and traditions like other “little soft cities,” but moving rapidly.

The poem is written in the present tense, which lends it immediacy. The poet is currently experiencing the city and its emotion, which is a radical departure from what the nineteenth century English poet William Wordsworth said poetry ideally was: emotion recalled in tranquility. There is nothing tranquil about “Chicago,” and the use of the present tense helps convey this.

Sandburg’s use of metaphor further supports his themes. He compares the city to a dog to show its fierceness. He compares it to a young man, endowing the city with youth and enthusiasm and energy. These comparisons are commonplace; there is no elaborate use of mythology or classical allusions, so the reader has immediate access to the meanings. Sandburg does not employ traditional poetic devices such as alliteration or assonance, preferring the rhythms of natural speech. This is a conscious appeal to the common man, as Sandburg believed that poetry should address the common man.

Perhaps one of the most outstanding devices the poet uses is the personification of the city. Personification, giving human characteristics to inanimate objects, is clear in the attribution of physical traits to Chicago, such as saying the city has a mouth and head. The city behaves in a human fashion, laughing and brawling and singing. In this way, Sandburg furthers the concept of the city’s vitality and life.

Additionally, Sandburg addresses the city directly—the poetic voice is speaking to the city. “They tell me you are wicked,” he says, as if the city will answer him. This conveys the idea that the city will continue, in the same fashion, regardless of the occupants. Indeed, if people move away, the city’s character will not change, and Sandburg acknowledges this self-perpetuating ability in the direct address.

Bibliography

Allen, Gay Wilson. Carl Sandburg. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972.

Callahan, North. Carl Sandburg: His Life and Works. University Park: State University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987.

Crowder, Richard. Carl Sandburg. New York: Twayne, 1964.

Durnell, Hazel. The America of Carl Sandburg. Washington, D.C.: University Press of Washington, D.C., 1965.

Hallwas, John E., and Dennis J. Reader, eds. The Vision of This Land: Studies of Vachel Lindsay, Edgar Lee Masters, and Carl Sandburg. Macomb: Western Illinois University Press, 1976.

Niven, Penelope. Carl Sandburg. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1991.

Yannella, Philip. The Other Carl Sandburg. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1996.