Carl Sandburg

Poetry for Young People

by Carl Sandburg, Frances Schoonmaker Bolin (Editor), Steven Arcella (Illustrator)

"...displays the range of everyday topics in which Sandburg found beauty, humor, or pathos....Unfamiliar words are helpfully defined in footnotes...and an introductory biographical essay establishes a context for the poems. Arcella makes a grand debut; his intensely colored sculptural forms, carved from dramatic shadows, have a distinctly '30s look to them...."--Kirkus Reviews. 48 pages (all in color), 8 1/2 x 10.

Genres: Poetry, Childrens, Picture Books, School, Young Adult, Fiction, Anthologies

48 pages, Hardcover

Published June 30, 1995

About the author

Free verse poems of known American writer Carl August Sandburg celebrated American people, geography, and industry; alongside his six-volume biography Abraham Lincoln (1926-1939), his collections of poetry include Smoke and Steel (1920).

This best editor won Pulitzer Prizes. Henry Louis Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_San...

Reviews

[Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful poems beautifully illustrated. Perfect for children or anyone at any age.

[Barbara Lovejoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have fallen in love with Carl Sandburg! I'm loving his poems more and more. Also, the illustrator is AMAZING!!!


July 8, 2020: This is one of the books I bought to reward myself for completing my goal to memorize 52 poems. What a treat! Now I have more poems I want to memorize. :)


2018: Beautiful book! The poems are wonderful. I really liked some of the illustrations...and others not so much even though the whole book was illustrated by Steven Arcella. My husband has been picking up these requested poetry books for me at the library. He joked that they weren't really books because they could be read in 5 minutes. NOT TRUE! :) Even the first reading took longer than 5 minutes--more like about 25 minutes. :) Yet, a beautiful poetry book like this one and others I have recently read need to be read and enjoyed over and over again...and maybe even memorized.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In its attempt to provide uncontroversial poetry for young people, this collection avoids all of Sandburg's poetry with any real social or political significance.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sandburg is one of my favorite poets, and I love this series, so I'm perhaps biased. I appreciate that there are lots of poems here, even one spread with four. Arcella's art is, erm, intriguing. It's heavier, sturdier, than I'm used to... usually Sandburg gets line drawings. It fits well, and is well done, but somehow I'm not particularly fond of it.

My (rhetorical & unanswerable) question now is: How many of the poems here that seemed unfamiliar to me truly were new to me, and how many were made unfamiliar by context of surprising illustrations? Dunno. Do know that some that are familiar to me certainly looked different this way, for example Arithmetic and We Must Be Polite.

The bios in this series always come up with some interesting info. Sandburg "never went to high school because the family could only afford to send his older sister, Mary."

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoy this delightful little series. It's a nice introduction to famous poets. There is typically one poem per page and they are all illustrated.

I didn't know anything about Sundberg, so it was all new to me. (Though I did recognize The Fog poem.)

Honestly, I didn't love all of it. Some of it was kind of boring, but I wouldn't be opposed to reading more. One poem brought tears to my eyes, though I'm not really sure why.

FROM THE SHORE

A LONE gray bird,
Dim-dipping, far-flying,
Alone in the shadows and grandeurs and tumults
Of night and the sea
And the stars and storms.

Out over the darkness it wavers and hovers,
Out into the gloom it swings and batters,
Out into the wind and the rain and the vast,
Out into the pit of a great black world,
Where fogs are at battle, sky-driven, sea-blown,
Love of mist and rapture of flight,
Glories of chance and hazards of death
On its eager and palpitant wings.

Out into the deep of the great dark world,
Beyond the long borders where foam and drift
Of the sundering waves are lost and gone
On the tides that plunge and rear and crumble.

I also loved this poem.

I SANG

I SANG to you and the moon
But only the moon remembers.
I sang
O reckless free-hearted
free-throated rythms,
Even the moon remembers them
And is kind to me.

[Ro · Rating 5 out of 5]

My reaction 😮😯🤯

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry for Young People is a great poetry book for children, teens as well as parents and adults. I especially like the illustrations in the book by Steven Arcella This book has many different poems about many different things, from fog to arithmetic to the summer grass as well as many other poems. My favorite poem in the book is Jazz Fantasia. Sandburg does a great job evoking emotion with his adjectives in this poem. "moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome treetops, moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible, cry like a racing car slipping away from a motorcycle cop, bang-bang!"

[Ally Patch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carl Sandburg: Poetry for Young People, Genre: Poetry, Copyright 1995
Kid Lit: Additional Poetry Selection
Poetry for Young People is a great book for young people. Within this book are 33 of Sandberg’s poems that he had wrote. In the beginning of the book, it has a description about Sandberg’s life and why he wrote some of the poems he did. The illustrations in this book are amazing and fit very well with the poem it was associated with. However, this book did feel like it took forever to read but that is because there was over 30 poems in this book. A lot of these poems had to deal with the outside and the climate. The poem that stood out to me the most was, “Little Girl, Be Careful What You Say.” The message that the author is trying to say is that people should be careful of what they say to others because in the end it could hurt them. I feel like poems should always give off good advice when it comes to children, and I feel like Sandburg did an excellent job in doing that. I did enjoy reading this book and I would rate this book 4 out of 5 stars.
Little girl,be careful what you say
When you make talk with words,words-
for words are made of syllables
and syllables, child, are made of air-
and air is so thin-air is the breath of God-
air is finer then fire or mist,
finer then water or moonlight,
finer then spider-webs in the moon,
finer then water-flowers in the morning
and words are strong,too
stronger then rocks or steel
stronger than potatoes,corn,fish,cattle,
and soft,too,soft as little pigeon eggs,
soft as the music of hummingbird wings.
So, little girl,when you speak greetings,
be careful,be careless,be careful,
be what you wish to be.
Carl Sandburg

[Tiyahna Ridley-Padmore · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the Poetry for Young People series, Scholastic aims to breath new life into the work of classic poets by making their poetry more accessible to a younger audience. The book includes a biography of the original author as well as a carefully selected series of poems accompanied by illustrations. The Poetry for Young People series also includes a glossary to help define new words that readers may come across.

I appreciate the idea behind this book, however, adding images and a glossary doesn't make Carl Sandburg's poems any more engaging for a young audience. In fact, even with the glossary, many of the poems would be difficult to understand .. and tedious to even try. There are a couple of more engaging poems that stand out to me such as We Must be Polite on page 27 about the elephant in the doorway.

My mom bought me this book series as a child and though I would read everything at that time with little no discrimination, I could not get through these. Perhaps they would be better suited as a teaching resource for students in grade 7 who are learning poetry.

[Shanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection includes poems about a variety of topics- most on nature, but some on buildings, or people, etc. Sandburg brings a delightful perspective of beauty and introspection to everyday events. His clever, creative metaphors paint a distinct and vivid feeling tone of the subject. From "Young Sea":
The sea is never still.
It pounds on the shore
Restless as a young heart,
Hunting.

[Ian MacIntyre · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book for a child's introduction to poetry. It has rhythm, verse, rhyming (not always), and fun. It is poetry that kids can visualize and mimic. I particularly enjoyed Fog, Doors and Summer Grass ...

Summer grass aches and whispers
It wants something; it calls and it sings; it pours
Out wishes to the overhead stars.
The rain hears; the rain answers; the rain is slow
Coming; the rain wets the face of the grass.


Lovely.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great array of Sandburg's poem, which serves as an introduction to his work for children in upper elementary and middle school. Includes a variety of poetic styles and several of his most well-known pieces. Accompanied by oil paintings, this collection includes an introduction to the author, a table of contents and index.

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

1 point for poem about Door

[Eileen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t really like poetry to begin with, and these poems were strange to me. Ive always liked the poem Fog, and I also liked Skyscraper.

[Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

The poetry in this volume of Carl Sandburg was robust.

[Skye Moshier-Chesnut · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book got me started on my path to writing free verse poetry. My Father bought me this when I was very young and encouraged me to write with my whole heart.

[Luci · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. These poems are just delightful! The ones in the first half, especially. "Arithmetic" was my favorite.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the poems and the artwork. I felt they fit well together.

[Abbeyw:)Turtlelover · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not like this book I thought it was weird some of the word choice for the metaphors were not so well I mean soft as a pigeon egg, really. The arithmetic poem was so confusing. By the way, the true definition is the branch of mathematics dealing with the properties and manipulation of numbers. Also, the poem the theme in yellow, It talks about Halloween and pumpkins yet the name is theme in YELLOW.

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice selection! Gorgeous illustrations, and Sandburg is as wonderful as always. I really liked the concession of the definitions at the bottom of the page for his more adult poems, that seemed like a great idea!

[Marilyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

50 States and at least 50 Authors 2016 Reading Challenge. ILLINOIS.

Carl Sandburg may be known by most people as biographer of Lincoln. This book of poetry begins with a brief biography of Sandburg. I was unfamiliar with all of the poems in this book. The one that stands out for me is "Arithmetic".

"Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your head,
Arithmetic tells you how many you lose or win if you know how
many you had before you lost or won.
Arithmetic is seven eleven all good children go to heaven --- or five six bundle of sticks....."

[Andrea Ference · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poetry for Young People by Carl Sandburg are a collection of poems only written by Carl. These poems are intentionally written for young people but may also appeal to a wider audience. Carl Sanburg's poetry is often deep and meaning and gives us a glimpse of what his life is like. One of my favorite things that I most like about the book is that there are definitions at the end of each poem defining some of the more difficult words. I like the way the books are set up because it is almost like reading a regular book. There is a cover page, table of contents, acknowledgements, etc. Most of the poems are rather short but have a lot of meaning to them because of the illustrations. The illustrations are simple sketches in colored pencil but they bring a lot to the story. I think children that read poems are smarter because reading poems cause your mind to comprehend something in a totally different way.

[Barbara]

Poetry for young people is a great book for those who are big fans of poetry as well as Carl Sandburg. Although there are many different poetry for young people books out there, this focuses just on Carl Sandburg. I have not read many of his poems when I was younger but some that I really enjoyed was "A Father to his Son" and "All Day Long". I like that the book entails great poems by one author. The illustrations give meaning to the poems and in this book they are soft colors that help really enhance the poem "All Day Long" for me. If one person loves Carl Sandburg in particular this would be a great read for them having all of the poems in one place. Teachers can use these poems in the classroom to teach them about poetry and that not everything needs to make sense or rhyme. I would recommend any sorts of poetry to anyone, they are all age appropriate, although they might not make sense they can be read to anyone. Different people interpret different things about every poem.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

What first struck me as interesting about Sandburg's work was how informative his poems were. We learn a lot about the places he grew up in the poem like Chicago and Illinois. The pictures in the book are very vivid and real, his use of color is a beautiful collaboration of colors. They really help set the scene of the poems. What I also liked it how he defined words at the end that are common words children would skip over and never look up. This almost forces them to learn and use new vocabulary. I think his poems give insight to children about the struggle a person could be growing through and this is an important concept for children to understand because they make assumptions that all kids live their lives the same way they do.

[Rachel Mclean · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, the illustrations in this poetry for young children book are absolutely beautiful in every single way! I love that they are all done in colors that match with each poems tone so unbelievably perfectly. I gave this book five stars and it definitely deserves all five of them. Some of the poems do have some words that may be a little harder for some younger readers to understand. But this book has something special. It provides footnotes which give meanings for the words so that it can help the reader to better understand the poems. All of the poems can touch the minds of young readers everywhere!

[Mallory · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of poems written by Carl Sandburg. These poems were created for "young people", but are written on topics that will appeal to a wide audience. This book of poetry is deep and meaningful; like all of Carl Sandburg's work. One of the things that I most like about the book is that there are definitions at the end of each poem defining some of the more difficult words. This will encourage students who might have been otherwise put off by the complexity of some of the poems.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting collection of poems from Carl Sandburg. It's a different style than most children might be used to. He doesn't use many rhyming but it's more about understanding his references to nature and his environment. It helps children understand that poetry isn't about rhyming works but about understanding concepts and ideas that the writer presents.

[CSlibrary]

Part of the Poetry for young people collection, this volume includes the well-known and respected poems of Carl Sandburg. Sandburg's poems give readers insight to life in Illinois and Chicago where Sandburg resided.

Find it at Carlisle School 811 SAN

[Robin Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Between Two Hills

This poem makes me want to curl up and have a good night sleep. The illustration has this haze over the town with one or two homes that still have their lights on. It makes me feel safe knowing everyone in the land will be dreaming while they rest.

[Kelly Risinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chicago interest. Carl Sandburg was a hobo. Didn't go to highschool or graduate college. Just dabbled in courses he found of interest. Children had learning issues and didn't leave home. Interesting that died the same year as Langston Hughes.