Americana Hero, Carl Sandburg born1878 January 6th

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An American writer, who won three Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry and writing, Carl Sandburg was born on this date in 1878.  Sandburg who also played folk music guitar while he sang and read poetry inspires an Americana music show and you are invited to sing along on Crosscurrents, 1/06 at 8 am.

Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg “indubitably an American in every pulse-beat.”

Carl August Sandburg was born January 6, 1878, in a three-room cottage in Galesburg, Illinois, to August and Clara Sandburg, immigrants from Sweden who met and married in the United States. One of seven children, he left school at the age of 13 to work and help support his family. He offered his time for military service in the Spanish-American War. Following the conflict, he qualified as a veteran for college admission even though he lacked a high school diploma. At Lombard College in Galesburg, Sandburg began to write poetry and prose, and his first booklets were published by his favorite professor, Philip Green Wright.

Sandburg left college without graduating and worked as a traveling salesman before becoming an organizer and orator for the Social Democratic Party of Wisconsin in 1907.  Encouraged by his wife, Sandburg kept writing poetry, most of it free verse. Sandburg was a popular platform performer, playing the guitar and singing American folk music, and reading his poetry and prose.

SANDBURG QUOTES:

If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.

Love your neighbor as yourself but don’t take down your fence.

Nothing happens unless first we dream.

There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.

Be careful with your words, once they are said, they can only be forgiven, not forgotten.

Now is the time. It is never too late to start something.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease but the quacking duck gets shot.

Life is like an onion. You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.

In democracy both a deep reverence and a sense of the comic are requisite.

Beware of advice-even this.

What if they gave a war and nobody came?

After the sunset on the prairie, there are only the stars.

Revolt and terror pay a price. Order and law have a cost.

The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.

I’m either going to be a writer or a bum.

I’ve written some poetry I don’t understand myself.