My favorite poem "Think about wheels" is simple yet profound -- "And in your head, in many little places behind Your blinking wonderful eyes, you can find, If you try, ten thousand wheels within wheels." Such poems are great for contemplation and for reading aloud to our children (I have a 4 year old)...

We purchased this book for our 3 year old and have found it to be absolutely charming. He enjoys several of the poems now, particularly the one about the egg and the button, and he will come to understand and appreciate others as he gets older. It is a wonderful book that a child can enjoy for many years.

If I were teaching Sandburg, i would use this collection as my text.

The introduction is concise, yet informative, giving some quick context to the life and ideas behind the poems.

Keeping in mind this is a selected works, and not a complete works, think of this as a "best of" edition.

Organized by ideas: * Chicago * Images * Poems of Protest * Love Poems * Lincoln * Anti-War and War Poems * Portraits * African-Americans * Poet of the People * Musings * Poetry Definitions.

By organizing them idealogically, it helps the reader becoming familiar with Sandburg as a primer. You can see his clear cynicism of religion and of religious people, and of his socialistic leanings (he is direct about these thoughts). His "Billy Sunday" is an intriguing look at a man who was just a man, yet spoke about Christ. Though Sandburg was known to be atheistic, it could be argued he had more spiritual thoughts.

You can read his sense of empathy and unity with the common man. Any urban dweller will hum in agreement to so much of his Chicago poems.

Sandburg's sense of rural beauty comes out, as does his pure admiration of Lincoln. Well-said is his recollection of the sinking of the Eastland (a boat which sunk in the Chicago River)... or, rather, his thoughts of how so many people died, and how many might've died.

I could go poem by poem, but the fact remains that Sandburg's style impacts poets today, from the Beats to Maya Angelou, to Gwendolyn Brooks.

I fully recommend this book.

Anthony Trendl

Sandburg was a superb poet. he speaks in such a raw voice, that the poems cannot help but to reach out and touch you, whether he writes about love, injustice, protest, war, chicago or any other subject.

Excellent Excellent Detialed week by week history of the administration through the biographies of all who knew him, generals, cabinet and plain folks.

This book, which is an abridgmment of Basler's larger 8-volume "Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln," is ideal for all students of Lincoln as a quick source for finding Lincoln's most well-known speeches, letters, and other documents. While other collections of Lincoln's writings do exist, Basler's is considered the most definitive. This one-volume edition of that collection makes the most popular and important Lincoln documents accessible to a larger group of people.

While most of us may be familiar with Carl Sandburg the biographer, Sandburg the historian, Sandburg the folksinger and Sandburg the poet of "Fog" and "Chicago" fame, most of us are not familiar with Sandburg the antiwar activitist, Sandburg the capital punishment opponent, Sandburg the religious hippocracy muckraker and Sandburg the Socialist. This collection of early works, written while Sandburg was employed as a journalist, introduces us the the second Sandburg. Considered too graphic in content, too frank in language, too taboo in theme and too disturbing in imagery to be published during his lifetime, these poems show us a young, angry Sandburg before he was elevated to the status of literary icon and cultural treasure. As a high school history teacher, I use this collection to introduce my students to such diverse topics as racism, sexism, the "Eastland" disaster, the religious revivals and fundamentalism and the Sacco and Vanzetti trail. Anytime you can get adolescents to volunteer to read poems in class, as they do with these, the lesson plan has to be considered a success and the credit goes to Sandburg for his writings, which to this day provoke lively discussion and strike a powerful cord on the human condition with the common man. Your library is not complete with this brief volume.

"Cornhuskers," a volume of poetry by Carl Sandburg, was first published in 1918. This book demonstrates a poetic style and subject matter that are very much like that of 19th century giant Walt Whitman; is fact, Whitman is even mentioned in one of the poems in this book (specifically, "Interior").

Sandburg writes in a direct, vernacular language. He demonstrates an appreciation of the lands, people, and animals of the United States. He pays particular attention to working class life, industrialization, and ethnic diversity. A series of poems deal with American wars from the Revolutionary War to World War I. Throughout, Sandburg's voice is at times ironic, mystical, ecstatic, and/or tender.

There are a number of particularly memorable selections in "Cornhuskers." I loved "Wilderness," which begins "There is a wolf in me." "Prayers of Steel" uses remarkable erotic language to explore the use of steel in America's development. Another impressive poem is "Alix," about a champion racing mare.

Sandburg writes, "I speak of new cities and new people." In "Cornhuskers," he created one of the first great poetic testaments of the 20th century.

This is the book I would take with me if I was stranded on a deserted island. Actually, I take it with me on every fishing and camping trip. It is a compact book which contains all of Carl Sandburg's most popular poems. I have 'The complete poems of Carl Sandburg' and it is a great book to have at home. However, it is too big to take anywhere with you. 'Harvest Poems' is a small paper back which costs less than $10 and contains my favorite poems "Chicago' and "Under a harvest moon" . It is sure to contain your favorite Sandburg poems too. If you are unfamiliar with this poet you might find a new favorite here. This is not poetry in the traditional sense. It does not rhyme. It will affect you down to your very core. I hope you give it a chance and enjoy it as much as I do.

Carl Sandburg revels in the Lincolnia of his contemporaries and provides insight into the world of the Lincoln Collector of the late 1940s and 1950s. Much more than the story of Oliver Barrett (although this is very interesting), this book presents many obscure letters and speeches with their historical context and is an excellent complement to the Sandburg biography of Lincoln. If you can find it, read it!

We think of socialists in one way, Carl Sandburg was probably not it. But his letters to his soon-to-be wife, Lillian Steichen, are full of his fabulous prose and whimsy. They met briefly in January, this book takes us from then until their marriage in June. Sweet and full of love, their letters also tell the story of the socialist party in the early 1900's.

What a wonderful book. All the poetic writing of Sandburg in a very informative study of the Lincoln Administration during the Civil War. You will find less details on specific battles but many more details on the politics and behind the scenes characters. You won't want to put this one down. Get to know Lincoln, his Cabinet and his Generals.