Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburgwas an American poet, writer, and editor who won three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. During his lifetime, Sandburg was widely regarded as "a major figure in contemporary literature", especially for volumes of his collected verse, including Chicago Poems, Cornhuskers, and Smoke and Steel. He enjoyed "unrivaled appeal as a poet in his day, perhaps because the breadth of his experiences connected him with so many strands of American life",...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth6 January 1878
CountryUnited States of America
Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if the women don't get you then the whiskey must.
A tough will counts. So does desire.So does a rich soft wanting.Without rich wanting nothing arrives.
And those who say, "I'll try anything once," often try nothing twice, three times, arriving late at the gate of dreams worth dying for.
The greatest certainty in life is death. The greatest uncertainty is the time.
In democracy both a deep reverence and a sense of the comic are requisite.
Poetry is a projection across silence of cadences arranged to break that silence with definite intentions of echoes, syllables, wave lengths.
My first stringed instrument was a cigar box banjo where I cut and turned the pegs and strung the wires myself.
History is a living horse laughing at a wooden horse. History is a wind blowing where it listeth. History is no sure thing to bet on. History is a box of tricks with a lost key. History is a labyrinth of doors with sliding panels, a book of ciphers with the code in a cave of the Saragossa sea. History says, if it pleases, Excuse me, I beg your pardon, it will never happen again if I can help it.
I learned you can't trust the judgment of good friends.
The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.
I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.
I doubt if you can have a truly wild party without liquor.
Be careful with your words, once they are said, they can only be forgiven, not forgotten.