Two Carl Sandburg Poems

Chicago
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.
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;
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,
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.

Fog

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

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

...

So, when I was in 1st grade, my teacher read us these two poems. I don't know why she would have read us this kind of poetry, if any at all. I think maybe she just liked Carl Sandburg. I remember her talking about these poems fondly. Perhaps she got tired one day of teaching us simple nouns and verbs and wanted to talk about what she wanted to talk about. So, she read us some poems. She wanted to discuss and analyze them with us, somehow. On "Chicago" I recall her emphasising the first line about the butcher and how in Chicago, around the early 20th century I suppose, the whole city would smell like fresh meat in the summer. That's pretty gross. I remember her talking about "Fog" for its metaphor between fog and a cat. I imagined this small bald headed older guy, who I thought would be Carl Sandburg, sitting on a dock in eerie mist with smokey fog creepy up on him, and he is perfectly content, possibly even oblivious.

I post these poems because I came across Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg today at the library. I immediatly thought about what I explained above with my teacher. He was probably the first poet I ever heard of, those were most likely some of the first poems I ever heard. I 'd say a good first poet. I find it very interesting too, my whole memory of this. What an odd thing to remember from 1st grade.