Carl August Sandburg Grass Literary Devices

Carl August Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois January 6, 1878 and died July 22, 1967. He was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry.(Carl New.) Sandburg enlisted in the 6th illinois infantry participating in the landing at Guanica. Afterwards, he became a student at the US military Academy at West Point. Sandburg attended Lombard College in Galesburg, and left with a degree in 1902. He met his wife, Lilian Steichen, at the Social Democratic Headquarters in Milwaukee and by 1908 they were married. Sandburg had a subject, belief in man (Sandburg, complete.) He cared for social issues and believed in humanity. In “Grass”, people had forgotten the war and those whom have died in conflict for this country. People forget the lessons of history leading them to …show more content…

Here the grass is the subject used to deliver a message to the reader. It acts as a cover up of all the deaths, battles and other historical memories and after “Two years, ten years,”(Sandburg 7) those memories will be forgotten. "And pile them high at Gettysburg"(Sandburg 4),here Sandburg is showing how during times of war many lives were taken, and dead bodies were left lying on the grass, continuously piling up. In the poem, line 5, "shovel them under and let me work" (Sandburg 5) this quote shows how the grass’ duty is to cover all the deaths. Here the grass is a mortician barring dead bodies. Sandburg expresses his view of how people are blind since they fail to discover the veiled meaning behind the grass. Nature is disappointed in how humankind has neglected learning from their mistakes and instead permits the grass to simply cover them up. To make matters worse, they do not even recognize a battlefield site when they see one as shown in lines 7 and 8, “What place is this? Where are we now?(Sandburg 7,8.) If this continues, soldiers whom have died fighting in war, may be forgotten as