Grass by Carl Sandburg

1. Grass
by: Carl
Sandburg
Prepared:Shera Love B. Mendoza
Bachelor in English Education III-2

2. Author’s Background
• Carl Sandburg was born in a three-room
cottage at 313 East Third Street in
Galesburg, Illinois, to Clara Mathilda (née
Anderson) and August Sandberg, both of
Swedish ancestry. He adopted the nickname
"Charles" or "Charlie" in elementary school
at about the same time he and his two
oldest siblings changed the spelling of their
last name to "Sandburg".
• At the age of thirteen he left school and
began driving a milk wagon. From the age of
about fourteen until he was seventeen or
eighteen, he worked as a porter at the Union
Hotel barbershop in Galesburg. He began his
writing career as a journalist for the Chicago
Daily News. Later he wrote poetry, history,
biographies, novels, children's literature, and
film reviews.

3. Author’s Background
• On February 12, 1959, in commemorations of the
150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth,
Congress met in joint session to hear actor
Fredric March give a dramatic reading of the
Gettysburg Address, followed by an address by
Sandburg. As of 2013, Sandburg remains the
only American poet ever invited to address a joint
session of Congress.
• Sandburg supported the Civil Rights Movement
and 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.
• Sandburg died of natural causes in 1967 and his
body was cremated. The ashes were interred
under "Remembrance Rock", a granite boulder
located behind his birth house.

4. Grass
BY CARL SANDBURG
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.

5. Who is the speaker?
The author is disappointed of those who would forget, and Sandburg implores
the reader to remember those lives lost in conflict.
To whom does the speaker speaking?
Carl Sandburg emphasizes the need to remember the people who have died in
war for the cause of freedom and chastises those who go about their daily lives
taking their freedom for granted. The straightforward statements in the poem
portray the author's disappointment of those who would forget, and Sandburg
implores the reader to remember those lives lost in conflict.
First Person Point of View
First Person Point of View
Background of the Work

6. Background of the Work
What is the Tone?
Sarcastic, objective and impassive
The words and repeated phrases suggest a
sarcastic tone. Nature seems frustrated that humankind
cannot learn from its mistakes and instead allows the
grass simply to cover them up. People pay so little heed
to their tragic errors of the past that they do not even
recognize a battlefield site when they see it.
Tone is objective and impassive: Grass has a job to do,
and as surely as rivers flow and thunder rumbles, it
does what it has to do.

7. Background of the Work
Concrete words Abstract words
Austerlitz and Waterloo
Grass
Gettysburg
Ypres and Verdun
bodies
Pile
Work
High years

8. Words Denotation Connotation
Smoke a visible suspension of carbon or
other particles in air, typically one
emitted from a burning substance.
Symbolizes the societ6al problems
that arises and comes to surface
Chicago Chicago, on Lake Michigan in Illinois,
is among the largest cities in the U.S.
Famed for its bold architecture, it has
a skyline punctuated by skyscrapers
such as the iconic John Hancock
Center, 1,451-ft. Willis Tower
(formerly the Sears Tower) and the
neo-Gothic Tribune Tower. The city is
also renowned for its museums,
including the Art Institute of Chicago
with its noted Impressionist and Post-
Impressionist works.
A city who have undergone certain
problems.
city A large town Symbolizes the society
Stacker of wheat a large machine used in bulk
material handling. Its function is to
pile bulk material such as cereals
on to a stockpile. A declaimer can
be used to recover the material.
Great productivity

9. Background of the Work
Figures of Speech
Personification-"Grass" is personified which means that the poet
has given the grass human qualities—ideas, thoughts, a work
ethic, a voice.
formal feature: repetition. Sandburg loves repeating lines like "I
am the grass" and "let me work" for emphasis.
Anaphora- In writing or speech, the deliberate repetition of the
first part of the sentence in order to achieve an artistic effect is
known as Anaphora.
Implied metaphor
-equates grass with time, which erases memories of war. The
battles referred to call up images of great carnage, as indicated in
the following details about the battles.
Concrete and Abstract Words

10. Background of the Work
Rhyme Scheme
Free Verse
The lines are fairly short, straightforward, and controlled.
Themes:
Theme 1: After humans kill one another in recurring wars, they let nature cover
up their dirty work.
Theme 2: People forget the lessons of history. Consequently, they repeat the
mistakes that caused the wars of the past.
Theme 3: People forget the fallen heroes of war after several years pass and
grass repairs battlefield scars.
Theme 4: Nature goes about its business dispassionately and ineluctably even
in wartime.
Motifs
 War
 Memory and the Past
 Man and the Natural World

11. Background of the Work
Implication of the title:
In this poem, we see the effect of
nature's pure drive. Nature has been effective in
obscuring the vestiges of war. We see the effect of
nature's pure drive. Nature has been effective in
obscuring the vestiges of war from the landscape.
People don't even realize when they're passing by
famous, deathly battlefields. The grass has erased
the signs of human history of war from the
landscape. People don't even realize when they're
passing by famous, deathly battlefields. The grass
has erased the signs of human history. The title
grass is the subject of the poem.

12. Chicago
By Carl Sandburg

13. Backround of the Work
In the poem, Sandburg paints a complete picture of Chicago,
proclaiming its virtues and its vices. Chicago is described by Sandburg as
the "City of the Big Shoulders," giving a vibrant and pleasing image of
the complex city life. He acknowledges Chicago's dark side, yet narrates
it as part of what makes the city special. "Chicago" is known as one of
the best poems of the 20th century American literature, and it was first
published in Poetry magazine in March 1914. Carl Sandburg established
his reputation with Chicago Poems (1916), and then Cornhuskers (1918),
for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in 1919. Sandburg had a pretty
unique view of what it means to be an American, and we see his love for
the country that gave him all of his varied opportunities in the poem
"Chicago."

14. Background of the Work
Chicago
by Carl Sandburg
Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.

15. And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;

16. Background of the Work
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs.

17. Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse,
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

18. Who is the speaker?
The poem is told by a speaker, whom the reader can assume is an
average American proud to be living is this great city.
To whom does the speaker speaking?
Directly to the state which is Chicago. Also, he speaks to the
people who critique Chicago, it’s government and the people.
First Person Point of View
First Person Point of View

19. What is the Tone?
Sarcastic
Figures of Speech
Personification- personification basically portrays the city itself as a strapping
young laborer—a strapping young laborer who is building the city itself.
"Chicago" is not just about the powerful position of the city, but about the brute
strength of the people who built it.
Simile- Chicago is compared to dogs and savages.
Ex. Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted
against the wilderness.

20. Anaphora
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I
have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of
women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at
this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:

21. Analysis

22. Stanza 1
HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight
Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

23. Stanza 1:Analysis
This stanza is perhaps the most important for it sets the
mood for the rest of the poem. It characterizes Chicago in terms
that are not necessarily positive. If one views the first line, it begins
with "Hog Butcher for the World." This describes one of the job
descriptions or epithets Chicago is associated with. This is not
perhaps the most glowing image to associate when one thinks of
Chicago, but is made up for when he describes it as the "Nation's
Freight Handler." With these two contrasting representations, one
can almost guarantee it will be a poem of contrasts, and indeed it
is. Brutal honesty is maintained throughout the work leaving few
possibilities for readers to decry the speaker's accuracy or bias.

24. Stanza 2
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;

25. Stanza 2: Analysis
The stanza begins with acceptance. The speaker accepted that
his city has problems. More than small ones it
seems: prostitution ("painted women"), rampant murder ("killers
go free"), and poverty and hunger ("wanton hunger"). He starts
out neutral in the first stanza, even negative with few examples
of positives, none obvious; now he accepts the faults the city
has. The speaker speaks as if on trial, betraying the
conclusion to come.

26. Stanza 2: Analysis
He says, "They tell me you are wicked," and, "Yes, it is
true" as if pleading guilty, but he does not give up as
shown in the next part of this stanza After facing
reality, the speaker stands resilient however he
challenges Chicago's accusers with the line beginning
"And having." This marks a significant change in the
mood.

27. Stanza 2: Analysis
Now he goes on the offensive, challenging someone to find him
another city so strong. It does not appear that niceness, a silly
frilly word he would probably say, is one of his main
priorities. He compares Chicago to a coarse animal: strong,
wild, and coarse. Flinging magnetic curses probably means
curses that grab and pull in. Not lightly used but brought deep
from within full of righteousness anger at "piling job after job" on
it. He scoffs at the other cities, for they are weak in his eyes.

28. Stanza 3
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action,
cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,

29. Stanza 3: Analysis
Bareheaded can most nearly mean exposed, uncovered, or, as in a construction
site, unprotected. The speaker describes Chicago as unprotected with this word
because the next words, shoveling, wrecking, planning, and building are most
closely related to construction work. This means that Chicago is always
changing destroying, rebuilding, and raw in its power. The last four words can
also describe the union's strikes and riots that occurred over prohibition of that
time which caused much poverty. If these words sum up, more than anything
else, the speaker and probably the author's view of the city.

30. Stanza 4
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse,
and under his ribs the heart of the people,

31. Stanza 4: Analysis
First, we look at the image of Chicago as a dirty city, but because
this is the optimistic part of the poem, we see the speaker still
believes that the city still has some goodness, some purity
underneath it all (white teeth). In the poem, Chicago personified
uses its white smile to express joy and laugh. One can draw the
conclusion that from this inner goodness that exists in the city,
there is still true joy. The speaker compares the city to an
overconfident underdog (terrible burden, ignorant fighter),
endearing it the city to most readers. He expresses that this pulse,
this strength, comes from not the city, but it's citizens.

32. Stanza 5
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player
with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

33. Stanza 5:Analysis
Laughing is a repeated phrase throughout the fourth and fifth
stanzas, and it gets its own line right before the beginning of the
last stanza. It says something that the speaker believes about
Chicago and its people: fearless and impossible to destroy (and a
little crazy). It is a joyous, defiant sort of laugh. A laugh of an
invincible youth at Death and one admiring his worth, strength, and
utter honesty; no falsehoods. The poem ends with a full circle
ending to sum up the overall message the poet leaves.

34. Concrete and Abstract Words
Concrete words Abstract words
Smoke
Chicago
city
Wicked
Crooked
Brutal
Singing
Strong
Alive

36. Rhyme Scheme
Free Verse
Sandburg wrote predominately free-verse poems, which are
poems with no regulated rhyme or meter structure, and
“Chicago” is no exception. This doesn’t mean, however, that
the piece is without musicality. Many lines have a melodic
flow that builds and climaxes with the staccato punch of one-
syllable words. The words Sandburg chooses are important
for more than this rhythm, however. His word choice tends
toward hard, demanding, even negative action words:
"sneer" and "‘toil" and "wrecking" and "bragging." Each of
these words contributes to the vivid and fast-moving quality
of the poem -- a quality that matches the city itself.

37. Themes:
Love for one’s City
Chicago is strength and skill
It’s that Chicago is a tough place for tough people. It's a rapidly
industrializing city, and we actually see it being built, wrecked, and rebuilt. The
poem is a little obsessed with the strength and power of the city, and, by
extension, the strength and power of the Chicagoans themselves.
“Chicago is not for the faint heart”
"Chicago" is a poem about the great city of Chicago that embraces
everything that the city has to offer, from hog butchers to railroads, from
construction sites to prostitutes. The poem takes in all of the city and not
just the good parts. It is presented to us joyfully. Perhaps even ecstatically.
The poem paints a portrait of a vibrant, cunning, wicked, joyful, laughing
place, and acknowledges all of the complexities of modern city life. This
Chicago is not for the faint of heart, and Sandburg wouldn't have it any
other way.
A City as a young man and its commerce.

38. Implication of the title:
Carl Sandburg's “Chicago” is more than a poem. It’s a time capsule that
holds the legacy of one of the most important industrial cities and its feel at the
turn of the 20th century. Originally published in “Poetry” magazine in 1914, the
poem gave Chicago the moniker “The City of the Big Shoulders,” a name that has
lived on to the present day. Sandburg used several techniques to capture Chicago,
including matching his word choices to the rhythm and feel of the city.
In some ways, this poem is a love letter to the city (and by extension,
the good ol' USA) itself. It's a poem that acknowledges the bad along with the
good, the horrific along with the wondrous, and the salacious along with the holy.
Chicago has room for hobos and poets alike, and this is what Sandburg loves
about his city. Chicago is the subject in the poem and where all the events in the
poem revolve to. Chicago is the subject title of the poem.

39. Sinners in the
Hand of Angry
God
Deuteronomy 32.35 Their foot shall slide in
due time.
by Jonathan Edwards
By Ann Beattie

40. Author’s Background
Ann Beattie (born September 8, 1947) is an
American novelist and short story writer. She has
received an award for excellence from the
American Academy and Institute of Arts and
Letters and the PEN/Malamud Award for
excellence in the short story form. Her work has
been compared to that of Alice Adams, J.D.
Salinger, John Cheever, and John Updike.
She holds an undergraduate degree from
American University and a master's degree from
the University of Connecticut. Beattie is married to
painter Lincoln Perry. In 2005 the two collaborated
on a published retrospective of Perry's paintings.
Entitled Lincoln Perry's Charlottesville, the book
contains an introductory essay and artist's
interview by Beattie. She was previously married
to writer David Gates. While she was at the
University of Connecticut, she developed a close
friendship with Elaine Scarry.

41. Author’s Background
• Born in Washington, D.C., Beattie grew up in Chevy
Chase, Washington, D.C., and attended Woodrow
Wilson High School. She gained attention in the early
1970s with short stories published in The Western
Humanities Review, Ninth Letter, the Atlantic
Monthly, and The New Yorker. Critics have praised
her writing for its keen observations and dry, matter-
of-fact irony which chronicle disillusionments of the
upper-middle-class generation that grew up in the
1960s. In 1976, she published her first book of short
stories, Distortions, and her first novel, Chilly Scenes
of Winter, later made into a film.
• Beattie's style has evolved over the years. In 1998, she
published Park City, a collection of old and new short
stories. Beattie has taught at Harvard College and the
University of Connecticut and presently teaches at the
University of Virginia, where she is the Edgar Allan
Poe Chair of the Department of English and Creative
Writing. In 2005 she was selected as winner of the Rea
Award for the Short Story, in recognition of her
outstanding achievement in that genre.

42. Her first novel, Chilly Scenes of Winter
(1976), was adapted as a film alternatively titled
Chilly Scenes of Winter or Head Over Heels in
1979 by Joan Micklin Silver, starring John Heard,
Mary Beth Hurt, and Peter Riegert. The first
version was not well received by audiences,
though upon its re-release in 1982, with a new
title and ending, to match that in book, the movie
was successful, and is now considered a cult
classic. She was elected a Fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.

43. Backround of the Work
Ann Beattie wrote "Snow" whilst teaching a creative writing class in
the 1980s. She had asked her students to write a "you" story and
decided to also write one herself. The Snow is one of Anne Beattie’s
collections of short stories in the book, "Where You'll Find Me and
Other Stories” published in 1986
Setting
Time –In a Winter
Place – countryside America
Mood – gloom, sadness
Tone – Reminiscent, Nostalgic

44. Characters:
The Narrator=the one who narrates the story, an unnamed female narrator who
recounts the story of the time she spent in the country with her former lover. As
though she is speaking directly to her former lover she recalls, in great detail, the
landscape of the area and some of the events of the winter they spent together.
The Lover= the former lover of the narrator who never paid respect of visits to
her. He is the man whom she remembered spending the winter together.
Allen= their neighbour who died. Allen was said to be the narrator’s good friend
in bad times.
Character Web:

45. Plot
1. The story begun with the narrator describing a cold night where her lover unknowingly
brings a chipmunk into the house whilst bringing in fire wood, it rushes towards the
front door as though it knew this was its path to escape.
2. The house is said to have a library, fireplace and wallpaper depicting purple grapes.
The walls are repainted yellow and the narrator imagines the grapes as alive; growing
and bursting through the paint.
3. The day of the "big snow" came and the narrator is reminded of her lover shoveling
the driveway; he wraps a towel around his head "like a crazy king of snow". Those
who lived nearby admired the couple, having moved from the city to the country, and
they had many visitors.

46. Plot
4. The fireplace is said to "make" the visitors want to tell amazing stories;
the narrator speculates that this may have been because they wanted the
couple to become an amazing story, but quickly concludes that "they
probably guessed it wouldn't work“.
5. The narrator claimed her lover imagined the "big snow" differently, and
that he believed the chipmunk ran into the dark, not towards the door.
6. Perhaps this difference in perspective reflects the contrasting value of
the experience to each of them; to the narrator it is one of her most
cherished times, however the lover is not as enthusiastic. The stories of the
visitors are described as being the same and the former lover believes
"any life will seem dramatic if you omit mention of most of it".

47. Plot
7. The narrative switched to a description of the narrators journey back to the house
after their relationship had ended. Their neighbor there, Allen, had died; Allen was
"the good friend in bad times". The narrator sit with Allen's wife in their living room,
gazing out onto their pool which had the cover on which was so full of rain water it had
overflowed. She liked the blooming crocuses, a white flower, to the snow but
concludes that they cannot compare.
8. The narrative is described as how a story should be told, "somebody grew up, fell in
love, and spent a winter with her lover in her country". It is then quickly written off as a
brief outline not worthy of discussion because eventually large periods of time are
remembered only by short moments. The story ends with the mention of a snowplow
that seemed to always be there, scraping snow from the road; "an artery cleared,
though neither of us could have said where the heart was".

48. Settings
• In a winter,
• In a countryside
Point of View
-First Person Narrative
Conflict
Man vs. Himself = the story showed how much she considered their love a special
relationship and wanted to hold on to the relationship by capturing very minute details and
stories with amazing and happy endings.
Literary Styles
Flashbacking
She remembered everything that happened to her once in countryside, in winter with her
former lover. Thus she retold the story which is the beginning of the flashback.
Simile
Our first week in the house was spent scraping, finding some of the house's
secrets, like wallpaper underneath wallpaper". The discovery of the houses secrets is
compared to finding wallpaper under wallpaper.
"The day of the big snow, when you had to shovel the walk and could not find
your cap and asked me how to wind a towel so that it would stay on your head, you in the
white towel turban like a crazy king of snow." The narrator compares her lover, with a
towel wrapped around his head, to a king.

49. SYMBOLISM
• Purity and Innocence - these are represented by snow in the story. The time
the couple shared at the house is considered pure, innocent and without fault; the
emotions of the narrator are encompassed by the snow. This is substantiated by the fact
that the narrator's emotions for her former lover, and of the time spent at the house, are
not evoked by simply revisiting that place, but by the crocuses slight resemblance of the
snow.
• The chipmunk represents the woman, who sees herself leaving her lover as
an escape after he states "What do you think you're doing in here" (114)? i.e., what are
you doing in this relationship? On the contrary, the man sees her as hiding or cowering.
The contrasting views about the chipmunk are also indicative of the lovers' differing views
in other areas of life and the fact that they do not belong together.
• The wallpaper symbolizes the covering up of issues in the couples'
relationship, which eventually come to the surface. This also symbolizes the dramatic
moments that must manifest in storytelling, and finally it symbolizes the fact that
repressed memories may eventually come to the surface.

50. • the covered pool is symbolic of the covering up of issues in the
relationship, as well as repressed memories. Also, water is generally used as a
symbol of life. The fact that the water pushes breaks through the lifeless plastic is
indicative of the importance of stories to contain a driving force or energy, rather
than to be stagnant.
• The whiteness of the snow indicates that the relationship between the
lovers is young and naive. The lovers are "knee-deep" in this young and naïve
love.
• The man described as the "king of snow”, and he "remembered that the
cold settled in stages" .This conveys the idea that his love towards her grows
cold, just as the snow is cold.
 Just as the snow covers the ground, the couple masks their issues.
 The snow also works as a symbol for storytelling. Just as snow becomes
a word that captured the love that the woman once had, stories are told
with words and symbols that capture important ideas. The fact that snow
becomes a word also indicates the fact that memories are triggered by
words and "symbols."

51. Themes
 love as a powerful element of the psyche and of memory
 Communication and intimacy
 Love found and love lost in a season.
Cultural Implication
1.Visiting friends and spending a night near the fireplace as the symbol of warm welcome.
2.Mourning to the dead.
Implication of the Title
The narrator in the story remembered the important time in her life in a country
house with her lover. Snow has represented the relationship that she had with her lover in
her memory. The lover wouldn’t return to the house and pay his respects to her. Winter is
a cold season of the year that everything looks hopeless and sorrowful to the narrator but
although winter can seem hopeless to some, but the narrator associated the snow and
winter with the best time of her life, when love was young and hopeful, and friends came
by to tell amazing stories. Snow is a symbol in the story used by the author as the title of
the story.