Grassby: Carl

SandburgPrepared:Shera Love B. Mendoza

Bachelor in English Education III-2

Author’s Background

• Carl Sandburg was born in a three-room cottage at 313 East Third Street in Galesburg, Illinois, to Clara Mathilda (née Anderson) and August Sandberg, both of Swedish ancestry. He adopted the nickname "Charles" or "Charlie" in elementary school at about the same time he and his two oldest siblings changed the spelling of their last name to "Sandburg". 

• At the age of thirteen he left school and began driving a milk wagon. From the age of about fourteen until he was seventeen or eighteen, he worked as a porter at the Union Hotel barbershop in Galesburg. He began his writing career as a journalist for the Chicago Daily News. Later he wrote poetry, history, biographies, novels, children's literature, and film reviews.

Author’s Background• On February 12, 1959, in commemorations of the

150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, Congress met in joint session to hear actor Fredric March give a dramatic reading of the Gettysburg Address, followed by an address by Sandburg. As of 2013, Sandburg remains the only American poet ever invited to address a joint session of Congress.

• Sandburg supported the Civil Rights Movement and was the first white man to be honored by the NAACP with their Silver Plaque Award as a "major prophet of civil rights in our time.

• Sandburg died of natural causes in 1967 and his body was cremated. The ashes were interred under "Remembrance Rock", a granite boulder located behind his birth house.

GrassBY CARL SANDBURG

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. 

Shovel them under and let me work— 

   I am the grass; I cover all. 

And pile them high at Gettysburg 

And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. 

Shovel them under and let me work. 

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:          

What place is this? 

Where are we now? 

  I am the grass. 

Let me work.

Who is the speaker?

The author is disappointed of those who would forget, and Sandburg implores

the reader to remember those lives lost in conflict.

To whom does the speaker speaking?

Carl Sandburg emphasizes the need to remember the people who have died in

war for the cause of freedom and chastises those who go about their daily lives

taking their freedom for granted. The straightforward statements in the poem

portray the author's disappointment of those who would forget, and Sandburg

implores the reader to remember those lives lost in conflict.

First Person Point of View

First Person Point of View

Background of the Work

Background of the WorkWhat is the Tone?

Sarcastic, objective and impassiveThe words and repeated phrases suggest a

sarcastic tone. Nature seems frustrated that humankind cannot learn from its mistakes and instead allows the grass simply to cover them up. People pay so little heed to their tragic errors of the past that they do not even recognize a battlefield site when they see it.Tone is objective and impassive: Grass has a job to do, and as surely as rivers flow and thunder rumbles, it does what it has to do.

Background of the Work

Concrete words Abstract wordsAusterlitz and Waterloo

Grass

GettysburgYpres and Verdun

bodies

Pile

Work

High years

Words Denotation Connotation

Smoke a visible suspension of carbon or other particles in air, typically one emitted from a burning substance.

Symbolizes the societ6al problems that arises and comes to surface

Chicago Chicago, on Lake Michigan in Illinois, is among the largest cities in the U.S. Famed for its bold architecture, it has a skyline punctuated by skyscrapers

such as the iconic John Hancock Center, 1,451-ft. Willis Tower

(formerly the Sears Tower) and the neo-Gothic Tribune Tower. The city is

also renowned for its museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago with its noted Impressionist and Post-

Impressionist works.

A city who have undergone certain problems.

city A large town Symbolizes the society

Stacker of wheat a large machine used in bulk material handling. Its function is to pile bulk material such as cereals on to a stockpile. A declaimer can be used to recover the material.

Great productivity

Background of the WorkFigures of Speech

Personification-"Grass" is personified which means that the poet has given the grass human qualities—ideas, thoughts, a work ethic, a voice.formal feature: repetition. Sandburg loves repeating lines like "I am the grass" and "let me work" for emphasis.Anaphora- In writing or speech, the deliberate repetition of the first part of the sentence in order to achieve an artistic effect is known as Anaphora. Implied metaphor -equates grass with time, which erases memories of war. The battles referred to call up images of great carnage, as indicated in the following details about the battles.Concrete and Abstract Words

Background of the WorkRhyme Scheme

Free Verse The lines are fairly short, straightforward, and controlled.

Themes:Theme 1: After humans kill one another in recurring wars, they let nature cover up their dirty work.Theme 2: People forget the lessons of history. Consequently, they repeat the mistakes that caused the wars of the past.Theme 3: People forget the fallen heroes of war after several years pass and grass repairs battlefield scars.Theme 4: Nature goes about its business dispassionately and ineluctably even in wartime.

Motifs War Memory and the Past Man and the Natural World

Background of the WorkImplication of the title:

In this poem, we see the effect of nature's pure drive. Nature has been effective in obscuring the vestiges of war. We see the effect of nature's pure drive. Nature has been effective in obscuring the vestiges of war from the landscape. People don't even realize when they're passing by famous, deathly battlefields. The grass has erased the signs of human history of war from the landscape. People don't even realize when they're passing by famous, deathly battlefields. The grass has erased the signs of human history. The title grass is the subject of the poem.

ChicagoBy Carl Sandburg

Backround of the Work 

In the poem, Sandburg paints a complete picture of Chicago, proclaiming its virtues and its vices. Chicago is described by Sandburg as the "City of the Big Shoulders," giving a vibrant and pleasing image of the complex city life. He acknowledges Chicago's dark side, yet narrates it as part of what makes the city special. "Chicago" is known as one of the best poems of the 20th century American literature, and it was first published in Poetry magazine in March 1914. Carl Sandburg established his reputation with Chicago Poems (1916), and then Cornhuskers (1918), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in 1919. Sandburg had a pretty unique view of what it means to be an American, and we see his love for the country that gave him all of his varied opportunities in the poem "Chicago."

Background of the Work

Chicago by Carl Sandburg

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;

Background of the WorkFierce 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.

Who is the speaker?

The poem is told by a speaker, whom the reader can assume is an

average American proud to be living is this great city.

To whom does the speaker speaking?

Directly to the state which is Chicago. Also, he speaks to the

people who critique Chicago, it’s government and the people.

First Person Point of View

First Person Point of View

What is the Tone?

Sarcastic

Figures of Speech

Personification- personification basically portrays the city itself as a strapping

young laborer—a strapping young laborer who is building the city itself.

"Chicago" is not just about the powerful position of the city, but about the brute

strength of the people who built it.

Simile- Chicago is compared to dogs and savages.

Ex. Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted

against the wilderness.

Anaphora

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:

Analysis

Stanza 1HOG 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:

Stanza 1:AnalysisThis stanza is perhaps the most important for it sets the

mood for the rest of the poem. It characterizes Chicago in terms that are not necessarily positive. If one views the first line, it begins with "Hog Butcher for the World." This describes one of the job descriptions or epithets Chicago is associated with. This is not perhaps the most glowing image to associate when one thinks of Chicago, but is made up for when he describes it as the "Nation's Freight Handler." With these two contrasting representations, one can almost guarantee it will be a poem of contrasts, and indeed it is. Brutal honesty is maintained throughout the work leaving few possibilities for readers to decry the speaker's accuracy or bias.

Stanza 2

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;

Stanza 2: AnalysisThe stanza begins with acceptance. The speaker accepted that

his city has problems. More than small ones it seems: prostitution ("painted women"), rampant murder ("killers go

free"), and poverty and hunger ("wanton hunger"). He starts out neutral in the first stanza, even negative with few examples of

positives, none obvious; now he accepts the faults the city has. The speaker speaks as if on trial, betraying the

conclusion to come.

Stanza 2: AnalysisHe says, "They tell me you are wicked," and, "Yes, it is true" as if pleading guilty, but he does not give up as

shown in the next part of this stanza After facing reality, the speaker stands resilient however he

challenges Chicago's accusers with the line beginning "And having." This marks a significant change in the

mood.

Stanza 2: AnalysisNow he goes on the offensive, challenging someone to find him another city so strong. It does not appear that niceness, a silly frilly word he would probably say, is one of his main priorities.

He compares Chicago to a coarse animal: strong, wild, and coarse. Flinging magnetic curses probably means curses that grab and pull in. Not lightly used but brought deep from within

full of righteousness anger at "piling job after job" on it. He scoffs at the other cities, for they are weak in his eyes.

Stanza 3Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action,

cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,

Bareheaded, Shoveling, Wrecking, Planning,

Building, breaking, rebuilding,

Stanza 3: AnalysisBareheaded can most nearly mean exposed, uncovered, or, as in a construction

site, unprotected. The speaker describes Chicago as unprotected with this word

because the next words, shoveling, wrecking, planning, and building are most

closely related to construction work. This means that Chicago is always

changing destroying, rebuilding, and raw in its power. The last four words can

also describe the union's strikes and riots that occurred over prohibition of that

time which caused much poverty. If these words sum up, more than anything

else, the speaker and probably the author's view of the city.

Stanza 4

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,

Stanza 4: AnalysisFirst, we look at the image of Chicago as a dirty city, but because

this is the optimistic part of the poem, we see the speaker still believes that the city still has some goodness, some purity

underneath it all (white teeth). In the poem, Chicago personified uses its white smile to express joy and laugh. One can draw the conclusion that from this inner goodness that exists in the city,

there is still true joy. The speaker compares the city to an overconfident underdog (terrible burden, ignorant fighter),

endearing it the city to most readers. He expresses that this pulse, this strength, comes from not the city, but it's citizens.

Stanza 5

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.

Stanza 5:AnalysisLaughing is a repeated phrase throughout the fourth and fifth

stanzas, and it gets its own line right before the beginning of the last stanza. It says something that the speaker believes about

Chicago and its people: fearless and impossible to destroy (and a little crazy). It is a joyous, defiant sort of laugh. A laugh of an

invincible youth at Death and one admiring his worth, strength, and utter honesty; no falsehoods. The poem ends with a full circle

ending to sum up the overall message the poet leaves.

Concrete and Abstract Words

Concrete words Abstract words

SmokeChicago

city

WickedCrooked

BrutalSingingStrong

Alive

Rhyme SchemeFree Verse Sandburg wrote predominately free-verse poems, which are

poems with no regulated rhyme or meter structure, and

“Chicago” is no exception. This doesn’t mean, however, that

the piece is without musicality. Many lines have a melodic

flow that builds and climaxes with the staccato punch of one-

syllable words. The words Sandburg chooses are important

for more than this rhythm, however. His word choice tends

toward hard, demanding, even negative action words:

"sneer" and "‘toil" and "wrecking" and "bragging." Each of

these words contributes to the vivid and fast-moving quality

of the poem -- a quality that matches the city itself.

Themes:

Love for one’s CityChicago is strength and skill

It’s that Chicago is a tough place for tough people. It's a rapidly industrializing city, and we actually see it being built, wrecked, and rebuilt. The poem is a little obsessed with the strength and power of the city, and, by extension, the strength and power of the Chicagoans themselves.

“Chicago is not for the faint heart”"Chicago" is a poem about the great city of Chicago that

embraces everything that the city has to offer, from hog butchers to railroads, from construction sites to prostitutes. The poem takes in all of the city and not just the good parts. It is presented to us joyfully. Perhaps even ecstatically. The poem paints a portrait of a vibrant, cunning, wicked, joyful, laughing place, and acknowledges all of the complexities of modern city life. This Chicago is not for the faint of heart, and Sandburg wouldn't have it any other way.A City as a young man and its commerce.

Implication of the title:

Carl Sandburg's “Chicago” is more than a poem. It’s a time capsule that

holds the legacy of one of the most important industrial cities and its feel at the

turn of the 20th century. Originally published in “Poetry” magazine in 1914, the

poem gave Chicago the moniker “The City of the Big Shoulders,” a name that has

lived on to the present day. Sandburg used several techniques to capture Chicago,

including matching his word choices to the rhythm and feel of the city.

In some ways, this poem is a love letter to the city (and by extension, the

good ol' USA) itself. It's a poem that acknowledges the bad along with the good,

the horrific along with the wondrous, and the salacious along with the holy.

Chicago has room for hobos and poets alike, and this is what Sandburg loves about

his city. Chicago is the subject in the poem and where all the events in the poem

revolve to. Chicago is the subject title of the poem.

Sinners in the Hand of Angry

GodDeuteronomy 32.35 Their foot shall slide in due time.

by Jonathan Edwards

By Ann Beattie

Author’s BackgroundAnn Beattie (born September 8, 1947) is

an American novelist and short story writer. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the short story form. Her work has been compared to that of Alice Adams, J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, and John Updike.

She holds an undergraduate degree from American University and a master's degree from the University of Connecticut. Beattie is married to painter Lincoln Perry. In 2005 the two collaborated on a published retrospective of Perry's paintings. Entitled Lincoln Perry's Charlottesville, the book contains an introductory essay and artist's interview by Beattie. She was previously married to writer David Gates. While she was at the University of Connecticut, she developed a close friendship with Elaine Scarry.

Author’s Background• Born in Washington, D.C., Beattie grew up in Chevy

Chase, Washington, D.C., and attended Woodrow Wilson High School. She gained attention in the early 1970s with short stories published in The Western Humanities Review, Ninth Letter, the Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker. Critics have praised her writing for its keen observations and dry, matter-of-fact irony which chronicle disillusionments of the upper-middle-class generation that grew up in the 1960s. In 1976, she published her first book of short stories, Distortions, and her first novel, Chilly Scenes of Winter, later made into a film.

 • Beattie's style has evolved over the years. In 1998, she

published Park City, a collection of old and new short stories. Beattie has taught at Harvard College and the University of Connecticut and presently teaches at the University of Virginia, where she is the Edgar Allan Poe Chair of the Department of English and Creative Writing. In 2005 she was selected as winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story, in recognition of her outstanding achievement in that genre.

Author’s Background

Her first novel, Chilly Scenes of Winter (1976), was adapted as a film alternatively titled Chilly Scenes of Winter or Head Over Heels in 1979 by Joan Micklin Silver, starring John Heard, Mary Beth Hurt, and Peter Riegert. The first version was not well received by audiences, though upon its re-release in 1982, with a new title and ending, to match that in book, the movie was successful, and is now considered a cult classic. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.

Backround of the WorkAnn Beattie wrote "Snow" whilst teaching a creative writing class in the 1980s. She had asked her students to write a "you" story and decided to also write one herself. The Snow is one of Anne Beattie’s collections of short stories in the book, "Where You'll Find Me and Other Stories” published in 1986 Setting Time –In a WinterPlace – countryside AmericaMood – gloom, sadnessTone – Reminiscent, Nostalgic 

Characters:The Narrator=the one who narrates the story, an unnamed female narrator who recounts the story of the time she spent in the country with her former lover. As though she is speaking directly to her former lover she recalls, in great detail, the landscape of the area and some of the events of the winter they spent together.The Lover= the former lover of the narrator who never paid respect of visits to her. He is the man whom she remembered spending the winter together.Allen= their neighbour who died. Allen was said to be the narrator’s good friend in bad times. Character Web:

Plot 1. The story begun with the narrator describing a cold night where her lover unknowingly

brings a chipmunk into the house whilst bringing in fire wood, it rushes towards the

front door as though it knew this was its path to escape.

2. The house is said to have a library, fireplace and wallpaper depicting purple grapes.

The walls are repainted yellow and the narrator imagines the grapes as alive; growing

and bursting through the paint.

3. The day of the "big snow" came and the narrator is reminded of her lover shoveling

the driveway; he wraps a towel around his head "like a crazy king of snow". Those

who lived nearby admired the couple, having moved from the city to the country, and

they had many visitors.

Plot 4. The fireplace is said to "make" the visitors want to tell amazing stories; the narrator speculates that this may have been because they wanted the couple to become an amazing story, but quickly concludes that "they probably guessed it wouldn't work“.

5. The narrator claimed her lover imagined the "big snow" differently, and that he believed the chipmunk ran into the dark, not towards the door.

6. Perhaps this difference in perspective reflects the contrasting value of the experience to each of them; to the narrator it is one of her most cherished times, however the lover is not as enthusiastic. The stories of the visitors are described as being the same and the former lover believes "any life will seem dramatic if you omit mention of most of it".

Plot 7. The narrative switched to a description of the narrators journey back to the house

after their relationship had ended. Their neighbor there, Allen, had died; Allen was "the

good friend in bad times". The narrator sit with Allen's wife in their living room, gazing

out onto their pool which had the cover on which was so full of rain water it had

overflowed. She liked the blooming crocuses, a white flower, to the snow but

concludes that they cannot compare.

8. The narrative is described as how a story should be told, "somebody grew up, fell in

love, and spent a winter with her lover in her country". It is then quickly written off as a

brief outline not worthy of discussion because eventually large periods of time are

remembered only by short moments. The story ends with the mention of a snowplow

that seemed to always be there, scraping snow from the road; "an artery cleared,

though neither of us could have said where the heart was".

Settings• In a winter, • In a countrysidePoint of View-First Person NarrativeConflictMan vs. Himself = the story showed how much she considered their love a special relationship and wanted to hold on to the relationship by capturing very minute details and stories with amazing and happy endings.Literary StylesFlashbackingShe remembered everything that happened to her once in countryside, in winter with her former lover. Thus she retold the story which is the beginning of the flashback.Simile

Our first week in the house was spent scraping, finding some of the house's secrets, like wallpaper underneath wallpaper". The discovery of the houses secrets is compared to finding wallpaper under wallpaper.

"The day of the big snow, when you had to shovel the walk and could not find your cap and asked me how to wind a towel so that it would stay on your head, you in the white towel turban like a crazy king of snow." The narrator compares her lover, with a towel wrapped around his head, to a king.

SYMBOLISM

• Purity and Innocence - these are represented by snow in the story. The time the couple shared at the house is considered pure, innocent and without fault; the emotions of the narrator are encompassed by the snow. This is substantiated by the fact that the narrator's emotions for her former lover, and of the time spent at the house, are not evoked by simply revisiting that place, but by the crocuses slight resemblance of the snow.• The chipmunk represents the woman, who sees herself leaving her lover as an escape after he states "What do you think you're doing in here" (114)? i.e., what are you doing in this relationship? On the contrary, the man sees her as hiding or cowering. The contrasting views about the chipmunk are also indicative of the lovers' differing views in other areas of life and the fact that they do not belong together.• The wallpaper symbolizes the covering up of issues in the couples' relationship, which eventually come to the surface. This also symbolizes the dramatic moments that must manifest in storytelling, and finally it symbolizes the fact that repressed memories may eventually come to the surface.

• the covered pool is symbolic of the covering up of issues in the relationship, as well as repressed memories. Also, water is generally used as a symbol of life. The fact that the water pushes breaks through the lifeless plastic is indicative of the importance of stories to contain a driving force or energy, rather than to be stagnant.• The whiteness of the snow indicates that the relationship between the lovers is young and naive. The lovers are "knee-deep" in this young and naïve love. • The man described as the "king of snow”, and he "remembered that the cold settled in stages" .This conveys the idea that his love towards her grows cold, just as the snow is cold.

Just as the snow covers the ground, the couple masks their issues.

The snow also works as a symbol for storytelling. Just as snow becomes a word that captured the love that the woman once had, stories are told with words and symbols that capture important ideas. The fact that snow becomes a word also indicates the fact that memories are triggered by words and "symbols."

Themes love as a powerful element of the psyche and of memory Communication and intimacy Love found and love lost in a season. Cultural Implication

1.Visiting friends and spending a night near the fireplace as the symbol of warm welcome.2.Mourning to the dead.

Implication of the TitleThe narrator in the story remembered the important time in her life in a country

house with her lover. Snow has represented the relationship that she had with her lover in her memory. The lover wouldn’t return to the house and pay his respects to her. Winter is a cold season of the year that everything looks hopeless and sorrowful to the narrator but although winter can seem hopeless to some, but the narrator associated the snow and winter with the best time of her life, when love was young and hopeful, and friends came by to tell amazing stories. Snow is a symbol in the story used by the author as the title of the story.