When he wasn't busy penning kooky kids stories that make little sense, like those found in Rootabaga Stories, or collecting a wide swath of American folk songs to be included in the American Songbag, Carl Sandburg was busy writing poems that exhibited a strong American voice, the kind of voice that feels like hard work just fighting to get off the page and into the factory.
Sandburg's most famous poem is likely "Chicago," a portrait of one of the most American cities. The second strophe begins "They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas pumps luring the farm boys." The strophe continues in a list like this, but ends with a turn as Sandburg unexpectedly champions such wickedness. An intriguing and spirited turn on America's most American, if not greatest, city.
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