"Have Me," by Carl Sandburg

"Tawny," by Carl Sandburg

Reading/video of a very short poem by Carl Sandburg concerning a color category, a season, and a memory of a face. From his book Smoke and Steel (1922).

link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc-7M088exA

"A Dream Girl," by Carl Sandburg

One-minute video/reading of a nice little poem--in my opinion--by Carl Sandburg.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYj5NbZMCW0

"Sandpipers," by Carl Sandburg

Here's a reading/video of a short poem by Carl Sandburg, "Sandpipers." I'm partial to bird poems. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8QrZ4BbiBM

"Who Am I?" by Carl Sandburg

Reading/video of a short poem by Carl Sandburg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rybg3P86B8g

"Hammer," by Carl Sandburg

Recording/video of short poem by Carl Sandburg, "Hammer."  Link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYxTInrG-bE

"The Subway," by Carl Sandburg

"A Coin," by Carl Sandburg

"Autumn Movement," by Carl Sandburg

"The Poor," by Carl Sandburg

"Broadway," by Carl Sandburg

"People Who Must," by Carl Sandburg

"Evening Waterfall," by Carl Sandburg

Moon Poems

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(image: Swiss cheese, the chief component of the moon, in spite of astronomers' and astronauts' protestations to the contrary)
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Not that you asked, but my favorite moon-poem is W.H. Auden's "This Lunar Beauty," chiefly because of the rhythm, which subtly echoes that of Jon Skelton's poetry.

Other good moon-poems include "Under the Harvest Moon," by Carl Sandburg, famous Swedish American; "Autumn Moonlight," by Matsuo Basho [how many haikus have a moon-image in the them, I wonder?] ; "Length of Moon," by Arna Bontemps; "The Moon Versus Us Ever Sleeping Together Again," by Richard Brautigan [I think we have a winner in the title-competition]; "The Moon Was But a Chin of Gold," by Emily Dickinson [I think we have a winner in the comparison-competition, and what a shock that's it's D: never mess with Ms. D.]; "Blood and the Moon," by W.B. Yeats; and "And the Moon and the Stars and the World," by Charles Bukowski.

Foggy Couplets

Couplets in the Fog


Fog's a species of weather--
gray, like a pigeon's feather.
Auden once wrote, "Thank you, fog."
Sandburg thought of cat, not dog.
Fog's in Eliot's Unreal City--
yellow fog, what a pity.
Call it mist, call it fog:
Still you tripped over that log.
If you can, take off work.
No sense traveling in that murk.
Anything you try to say
will come out mumbled, foggy gray.
The fog is subtler than the snow.
And so it's the more dangerous foe.



Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom