SOURCE: Zwaska, Caesar. Review of Chicago Poems, by Carl Sandburg. Little Review 3, no. 5 (August 1916): 9-11.

In the following review, Zwaska comments on Sandburg as a success among modern poets, and on the vast range of life displayed in Chicago Poems.

It has come to be that on the stage, where once we watched for artists, we find only vainly strutting weak-willed human beings. We are not held, and the light within the sacred space grows dimmer. We lose all interest in places where once we have found Art.

And how desperate we have become!

The procession of the Imagists has been the only sacred thing before our eyes—thin and fragrant. Their fragility has the sap of eternity; blustering winds, blowing through the gaps back-stage, tear at them in vain. The Imagists have grown straight and strong. The beauty of their tiny procession strikes into our very hearts...