Silent Poems

Aprons of Silence~Carl Sandburg
Many things I might have said today,
And I kept my mouth shut.
So many times I was asked
To come and say the same things
Everyone else was saying.
The Aprons of Silence covered me.
A wire and a hatch held my tongue.
I spit nails into an abyss and listened.
I shut off the gable of all those who
Are listed in the City Directory.
I fixed up a padded cell and lugged it around.
I locked myself in it, and no one knew.
No one knew it on the streets, in the Post Office,
In the cars, into the railroad station.
Here, I took myself along
And did business with my own thoughts.
Do you see it?
It must be the Aprons of Silence.

What are the Aprons of Silence? They are the inability to speak one's mind.

Carl Sandburg was an American poet who won three Pulitzer Prizes. Carl Sandburg was raw and open and confident. He spoke for America. He was America. Sandburg began his writing career as a journalist for the Chicago Daily News. Later on, he began writing poetry. Sandburg was a member of the Socialist Party of America. Sandburg wrote the majority of his work while living in North Carolina. Sandburg wrote a biography of Abraham Lincoln and supported the Civil Rights Movement. "Chicago" is a poem by Carl Sandburg.

Hog butcher for the world,
Tool maker, stacker of wheat,
Player with railroads and the nation's freight hander;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders. 

The previous verse is the first stanza of "Chicago." A verse refers to any number of lines grouped together, whether it be an entire poem or just a section of it. Stanza refers to a formally defined unit of a poem. It is similar to a paragraph in an essay. Stanzas relate to the structure of a poem. In poetry, a stanza is part of a larger poem. In traditional poems, stanzas have a rhyme scheme and rhythm. Stanzas also have a fixed number of lines. A stanza is two or more lines of a poem while a verse can be any line. A stanza does not need to be a particular number of lines, but they do have a recurring structure. A four-line stanza is called a quatrain. Quatrains were very popular in the far and middle east. Quatrains can be written using twelve different rhyme schemes. Here is an example of a quatrain: "Come, fill the cup and the fire of spring/Your winter garment of repentance fling/The bird of time has but a little way/to flutter and the Bird is on the wing."

Carl Sandburg distinguished himself in five fields: poetry, history, biography, fiction, and music. Most of Sandburg's poems are in free verse. Free verse is nonmetrical, nonrhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech. The free-verse poet does not structure his poem in any organized fashion:

Like children bathing on the shore
Buried a wave beneath
The second wave succeeds before
We have had time to breath. 

Some critics said that Sandburg's poetry only gave the illusion of poetry because of the arrangement of the lines. However, he also had many admirers. Sandburg was a true original; he was his own man. He did have a unique quality and style about him. Sandburg spoke to the masses. Sandburg called himself one of the everyday people. Sandburg wrote a superb biography of Abraham Lincoln. Sandburg studied the President for nearly thirty years before writing his book. Sandburg's intention was to separate the myth of Lincoln from the truth. Sandburg considered himself a hobo. He says that his story is one of America.

When Carl Sandburg died in 1967, President Lyndon Johnson was among the first to sing his praises. Johnson was not the only one who felt that way. Americans everywhere cherished Sandburg, believing that his voice celebrated the spirit of America. Sandburg traveled much throughout his lifetime, thus considering himself a hobo. He was an activist. After 1912, Sandburg became a literary celebrity. He was the poet of the ordinary people. He gave many poetry readings, which only heightened his popularity.

Some fun facts about Sandburg:

• He considered running for President.
• He worked as a war correspondent during World War 1.
• He wrote books for children.
• He spoke before Congress about Abraham Lincoln.

Tone and diction in Sandburg's Poems

Some poems exhibit a subtle tone that is hard to perceive and nearly impossible to describe. Others practically break forth with trumpets in the first stanza. Whether gently or boldly, poets convey tone or attitude to the subject, through diction. Diction is word choice and syntax and details.

Quickwrite for your journal:

Would you rather live in the city or the country?

More from "Chicago":
They tell me that you are wicked, and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lights luring the farm boys.

Some more words to know when reading Sandburg:

• Personification is the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman. "The stars danced playfully in the moonlight." "The run-down house appeared depressed."
• The tone is the poet's attitude toward the poem's speaker, reader, or subject matter, as interpreted by the reader.

You ask for a poem:
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
This blade of grass has dressed itself in frost.
It is more immediate than any words I can craft.
You say it is too easy to offer a blade of grass.
You want a poem.
And so, I write you a tragedy. 

Classroom Idea:
A Haiku Tea
Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry that is more than 500 years old. The traditional form is a short verse using seventeen syllables arranged in three lines: five on the first line, seven on the second, five on the third. Urge students to write haiku. Frame the poems on oversized construction paper that students have decorated. Invite family members to hear the haiku read aloud. Parent volunteers can bring in refreshments from Japanese cuisine like rice crackers and tea. For a quick craft, make an origami tea cup. Haiku is a Japanese word that loosely translates to "playful verse." To make the poem a true haiku, it must include a kigo--a word that reminds the reader of one of the four seasons.

An old pond!
A frog jumps in--
the sound of water.