On Friday, March 26, 2021 at 12:22:39 PM UTC-4, michaelmalef...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, March 26, 2021 at 11:18:24 AM UTC-4, Will Dockery wrote:
> > On Thursday, March 25, 2021 at 10:38:04 PM UTC-4, Zod wrote:
> > > W.Dockery wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Today's poem on the Shadowville Mythos poetry blog:
> > >
> > > > Poet Muses (Part 1)
> > >
> > > > I.
> > >
> > > > Carl Sandburg was the quiet one
> > > > in the ginger-bread cottage
> > > > a few blocks from Lake Michigan
> > > > sitting with the avant-garde
> > > > of modern 1918 Chicago.
> > >
> > > > Yet it is his voice
> > > > ringing out loud and clear
> > > > from that group [...]
> > >
> > > > Read more at:
> > >
> > > > Shadowville Mythos: Poet Muses (Part 1)
> > > > https://shadowville-mythos.blogspot.com/2021/03/poet-muses-part-1.html?spref=tw
> > >
> > > Outstanding selection from the Sundayu Sampler archives Doc...
> > Dan Barfield just sent me a note, he really likes this one, high praise indeed:
> >
> > "I have just sent you an email about this work. I think it is the best thing you have ever written."
> The "best thing you have ever written" only has meaning when compared to the rest of your work. If the body of your work is poorly written, a semi-competent piece might easily be your best.
>
> This piece is less incompetent than some of your other poems.
>
> I didn't bother to critique this when it appeared in "The Sunday Sampler," so here's a belated one for your benefit. It would not have made it into "A Year of Sundays."
> Poet Muses (Part 1)
>
> I.
>
> Carl Sandburg was the quiet one
> in the ginger-bread cottage
> a few blocks from Lake Michigan
> sitting with the avant-garde
> of modern 1918 Chicago.
> [The Sandburg house is neither gingerbread nor a cottage. It is "a multi-storied house designed by Lilian Sandburg with mixed Colonial Revival and Georgian Revival elements." (Wikipedia) "Gingerbread" is "an architectural style that consists of elaborately detailed embellishment known as gingerbread trim." (ibid.) Sandburg's house is much too large and stately to be considered a cottage, and neither the Colonial or Georgian Revival style has anything to do with "gingerbread." The content of this stanza is also unclear: is Carl Sandburg sitting with "the avant-garde of modern 1918 Chicago" in his lakeside home? Or is he joining them at a coffee house or poetry reading in Chicago? If he is hosting them, his quietness wouldn't signify the unobtrusive qualities your poem implies. And, FYI, 1918 Chicago is no longer "modern."]

You need to read up more on early Carl S.....:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1991-04-21-9102050686-story.html

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At age 19, he took to the road and, after five months as a hobo, served a stint as a soldier in the Spanish-American War. Returning to Galesburg, Sandburg enrolled in Lombard College where, under the influence of Prof. Philip Wright, he began to write. Wright published Sandburg`s first book of verse, ''In Reckless Ecstasy,'' in 1904, on a press in the basement of a building at Lombard.

With his social consciousness raised by his experiences on the road and in war, Sandburg left Lombard and in 1907 became an organizer for the Wisconsin Social Democratic Party. In Milwaukee, he met and married Lilian Paula Steichen, whose brother was the famed photographer Edward Steichen. Three years after their marriage they moved to Chicago, where Sandburg worked for several newspapers.

In the early years, Lilian encouraged Sandburg to write more poetry. She typed the manuscripts, sent them off to publishers, received the rejection notices, and tried again. In 1914, Sandburg`s ''Chicago Poems'' was published..

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