It's the birthday of Carl Sandburg (January 6, 1878).

He was a mid-westerner with a strong back, weathered hands, and had a voice like the rolling prairie winds. He won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. He was a man of the people, as down to earth as they come. Yet because of his talent and authentic dignity, people who made the headlines wanted to know him.

Click Carl Sandberg's image to hear him reciting his famous poem, "Fog."

Fog

By Carl Sandburg

The fog comes 
on little cat feet. 

It sits looking 
over harbor and city 
on silent haunches 
and then moves on.



Click the image of Carl Sandberg at the typewriter to hear him recite his "Buffalo Dusk."

Buffalo Dusk

The buffaloes are gone.

And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.

Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs, their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,

Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.

And the buffaloes are gone.

Click Carl Sandberg with guitar to hear him singing, "I Ride an Old Paint."

 

Carl Sandberg 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."

Among the many who made the headlines and were attracted to him was Marilyn Monroe. She admired his poetry and he encouraged her to write her own.