Handfuls and War Poems by Carl Sandburg

Source of book: I own this

 

For this post, I read two of Sandburg’s shorter collections, Handfuls and War Poems. The former consists of eleven short poems about various topics. The latter likewise consists of eleven poems, but these are all about World War One. I combined them as both were quite short. 

 

I previously wrote about Sandburg’s famous and far longer collection, Chicago Poems. 

 

Handfuls includes one of Sandburg’s most famous poems, “Fog,” which many of us read back in our school days.

 

Fog

 

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

 

It sits looking

over harbor and cit

on silent haunches

and then moves on. 

 

That’s classic imagery that has stood the test of time. The other one I selected from this collection is one that speaks to the choice all of us face in these troubled times. So many, alas, have chosen poorly. 

 

Choose

 

            The single clenched fist lifted and ready,

Or the open asking hand held out and waiting.

                        Choose:

For we meet by one or the other. 

 

There are other poems I could have chosen - I thought this was a strong collection despite its short length. 

 

For War Poems, Sandburg’s opposition to war generally, and to the senseless stupidity that was World War One in particular is the theme. And really, in a history of truly stupid, pointless, and needlessly destructive wars, World War One stands out as particularly dumb. It also accomplished nothing of benefit to anyone, instead leading directly to another war, one even more destructive and bloody. 

 

I picked two poems from this collection as well, although I think any of the others would have served as well. It is a particularly coherent book, with all the poems leading in the same philosophical direction. I find I agree with Sandburg throughout these days. Remember, my generation hasn’t seen our country engaged in a single morally defensible war. We have literally made the world - and the countries we have invaded - worse by our actions. 

 

Iron

 

Guns,

Long, steel guns,

Pointed from the war ships

In the name of the war god.

Straight, shining, polished guns,

Clambered over with jackies in white blouses,

Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth,

Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses,

Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties.

 

Shovels,

Broad iron shovels,

Scooping out oblong vaults,

Loosening turf and leveling sod.

 

            I ask you

            To witness - 

            The shovel is brother to the gun.

 

I would compare here a British poet, Wilfred Owen, who died in World War One just a week before the armistice. 

 

I’ll end with this commentary on the stupidity of war. 

 

And They Obey

 

Smash down the cities.

Knock the walls to pieces.

Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homes

Into loose piles of stone and lumber and black burnt wood:

            You are the soldiers and we command you.

 

Build up the cities.

Set up the walls again.

Put together once more the factories and cathedrals, warehouses and homes

Into buildings for life and labor:

            You are workmen and citizens all: We command you.

 

Yeah, just saying. 

 

We live in incredibly stupid times, when stupidity is cultivated and celebrated and the rest of us are supposed to pretend that this is all genius rather than stupidity. Included in this seems to be the return of the idea that waging wars of conquest are a way to national greatness, even as the realities of modern weapons have proven this to be a lie. 

 

And really, war has, for the most part, been a matter of narcissistic old men gaining “glory” at the expense of the lives of their less wealthy and powerful fellow humans. 

 

In many ways, the time of Carl Sandburg resembles our own: soaring inequality, global unrest, the rise of Fascism. And thus, his poems speak well to our own situation and moral needs.