With the publication of Chicago Poems in 1916, Carl Sandburg became one of the most famous poets in America. The voice of a midwestern literary revolt, Sandburg fused free-verse poetics with hard-edged journalistic observation and spirited protest. Critic Paul Berman’s career-spanning selection casts a fresh eye on Sandburg’s still underappreciated genius, highlighting his use of the “rapid-fire catch-phrases of the big-city sidewalks and billboards [and] the easy vernacular of the checkout counter” to forge his own brand of modernist poetry—defiant, humorous, and attuned to the rhythms of the new industrial America.

Paul Berman is is the author of several books, including The Flight of the Intellectuals. His essays on poets and poetry have appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Parnassus, Tablet, and elsewhere.

About the American Poets Project

Elegantly designed in compact editions, printed on acid-free paper, and textually authoritative, the American Poets Project makes available the full range of the American poetic accomplishment, selected and introduced by today’s most discerning poets and critics.