SOURCE: Beyers, Chris. “Carl Sandburg's Unnatural Relations.” Essays in Literature 22, no. 1 (spring 1995): 97-112.

In the following essay, Beyers links Chicago Poems to poetic tradition, observing that in many cases Sandburg modernized older forms in his verse.

Carl Sandburg, Bernard Duffey has remarked, “is something of an institution” (295). Indeed, by the time of his death, Sandburg had reached the level of cultural icon—so much so that a list of his activities and honors tells a story of American cultural history, 1940-1969. It's not just his two Pulitzer Prizes (one in 1940 for Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, the other in 1950 for Complete Poems) and numerous honorary degrees. There's a picture of his reading to Congress with Sam Rayburn and Richard Nixon looking on, and another of him looking on while Elizabeth Taylor reads what presumably is his contribution to the script of The Greatest Story Ever Told. He lectured...