Carl Sandburg

[Music] this is canamar Farm Flat Rock North Carolina near ice it is the home of a very considerable American to whom most of us are beholden Carl Sandberg poet philosopher historian and biographer it is a home that is spacious it has room for people for children for walking sticks for goats and particularly for books books Upstairs Downstairs on the stairways in the Attic in the basement everywhere books and here we have two rows of books two shells one for his granddaughter Paula and another for his grandson John 24 volumes the output of 76 years Abraham Lincoln the prair years Abraham Lincoln the War years four volumes Mary Lincoln wife and Widow the complete poems of Carl Sandberg remembrance Rock always the young strangers Chicago poems the people yes the Rota Stories the American song bag 24 volumes and no one knows not even Sandberg how many contributions to magazines and learned periodicals just the other day we were walking outside chatting with him about why he chose to settle in Flat Rock I call it's up here on this rock isn't it where you wrote part of always the young strangers yes uh I wrote thousands of words with a Le pencil there and uh my daughter Helga transcribed them but uh on on Lincoln I couldn't bring the materials uh that I need to consult from time to time I couldn't bring them up here so you wrote most of that in the house yes well perhaps you'll show us your work room in the house a little later it's a dizzy Corner kind of a crazy corner cuz uh I don't pretend it's organized mhm I don't pretend it's organized how old were you when you scored your first literary success I was 38 when Chicago poems was published that was my first uh book by a regular Publishing House the memory of those early years the struggles of a writer to achieve recognition those years were were shared by Mrs Sandberg in her modest gracious way she tells of her part in helping her husband gain success as a poet Carl wrote for a long time before he really achieved proper recognition didn't he oh yes he wrote for 20 years at least and he wrote he he worked through the nights uh with no Prospect really of having uh his poetry ever published we we all at that time it was poetry it was writing and uh we always look forward to saving enough money to get a a book printed because we I used to send the his poems away the magazines they always came back we had a regular uh Circuit of them to which we'd send them and they'd come back and then finally the time came when he got recognition by the U in poetry that magazine about poetry in Chicago and then the publisher saw that and and he he became recognized but he would he worked just as hard before somehow he works for himself for his own ideal and he never considers anything else but what he personally would consider a good book he works for himself for his own ideal and how does he shape his work how does a writer create a style well tell me why do you dislike adjectives I'm sure it didn't come out of an experience I had at West Point what was that at West Point for two for while there I was a classmate of Douglas MacArthur and uh Ulus S Grant thei I was a classmate of theirs for two weeks I was notified by the superintendent that I had failed in arithmetic I might have expected that that but grammar grammar I probably I probably failed to remember the definition I had read of a verb and I don't know I might have gotten a hate of adjectives then what do you think is the worst word in the English language the one word more detestable than any other in the English language is the word exclusive exclusive when you're exclusive you shut out a more or less large range of humanity from your mind and heart from your understanding then what do you answer when people ask you how you write how you go about the business of writing much depends on who is asking the question sweet young things that will ask that question how do you write and I say simple it's easy you just sit up to the typewriter and you put down one word after another if you try to put down two or three words you're s and they take that as very valuable advice Carl I I think you said once that an author must write what he thinks and a poet must write what he must is that right that'll go for different kinds of writers it will go for uh oh a good many of the best poets there is being written today a lot of cerebral Pro poetry poetry out of the brain with nothing of the blood in it and it's rather pathetic you need footnotes and you need diagrams or there are readers of it that say oh I understand it I understand it uh and then there are those who are honest enough to say they don't understand such poems and then there are still others that have had it explained to them and they say uh they say to those who told him those who explained it I understood it until you explained it to me Carl a great many people speak frequently of the people yes I I've marked a couple of passages here and I wonder if you'd read them for us I think we can get around to that all right all right all right I'll try the people will live on the learning and blundering people will live on they will be tricked and sold and again sold and go back to the nourishing Earth or roles the people so peculiar in renewal come back you can't laugh off their capacity to take it the mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas steel mill Sky Is Alive the fire breaks white and zigzag shot on a gun metal bloing man is a long time coming man well yet a wind brother may yet line up with brother this old Anvil for people yes laughs at many broken hammers there are men who can't be bought there are women Beyond purchase the fire born not at home in fire the Stars May make no noise you can't hinder the wind from blowing time time is a great teacher who can live without hope in the darkness with a great bundle of grief the People March in the night and overhead a shovel of stars for peeps the People March where two what next where to what next what next would you rather be remembered as a poet or biographer a historian or what I'd rather be known as a man who says what I need mainly is three things in life possibly four uh to be out of jail to eat regular to get what I write printed and then a little love at home and a little outside both four things and uh I don't need to be called either poet historian biographer guitar player folk singer Min singer and uh what there was one no oh notl no you you have got all four of those things right in a way of speaking do you know more of our past than I think anyone I know do you feel that we're in danger of tearing ourselves apart there never has been a time there never has been a time that there were not clouds on the horizon for the country and there was one crisis after another that can be named in the colonial times in the American Revolution and that Civil War the like of which almost no other country has ever had and then the two World Wars over and over again it has looked as though we were sunk as a nation and always it's the point I try to make in that novel remembrance Rock always there has been a saving remant always there has been enough of a small faithful minority faithful to the death in his Epic Novel remembrance Rock Mr Sandberg interprets for us his deep faith in America and in the people who shaped what is sometimes called the American dream listen as Mr Sandberg reads selected passages from rembrance Rock when we say a patriot is one who loves his country what kind of love do we mean a love we can throw on a scale and see how much it weighs a love we can take apart to see how it ticks a love where with a yard stick we record how long how high how wide it is or is a Patriots love of country a thing invisible equality a human shade and breath beyond all Reckoning and measurement these are questions old as the time of man and the answers we know in part only for we know when a nation goes down and never comes back when a society or a civilization perishes one condition may always be found they forgot where they came from they lost sight of what brought them alone the hard Beginnings were forgotten and the struggles Farther Along they became satisfied with themselves unity and common understanding there had been enough to overcome rot and dissolution enough to break through their obstacles but the mockers came and the deniers were heard and vision and hope faded and the custom of reading became what's the use and Men whose forefathers would go anywhere holding nothing impossible in the genius of man joined the mockers and deniers they forgot where they came from they lost sight of what had brought them along the call to hardship toil and combat runs like a blood Scarlet thread over and through the story of the American people it has cost to build this nation living men in struggle and risk in self denile and pain in familiarity with sacrifice wounds and death those living men of the past paid the cost they ought not to be forgotten the Dead who held in their clenched hands that was which became the heritage of us the living [Music]