Hi Jason:
I used to compete in Public Speaking events in high school. I took second in the State Championship to someone reading a Carl Sandburg poem you would probably like, called "The Man with the Broken Fingers" (I was presenting TS Eliot's "The Hollow Men" and Dylan Thomas' "And Death Shall Have No Dominion"). The Sandburg poem is about what the Nazi's do to a member of the Underground Resistance they capture in, if I remember correctly, Norway. Could be Finland. It is quite a good poem for public reading, very powerful, and I remember liking it a good deal.
I know that Sandburg has fallen into critical disfavor. And there is some merit to that evaluation. He can read like Whitman Lite. But I must admit I love "Chicago"--it does have a great Biblical cadence to it, as in the best of Whitman. And "Fog" is quite effective too. But Sandburg is not someone I have ever gone out of my way to read. What should I read that I haven't?
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