Cahoots (Carl Sandburg)

Hehe, I am so amused by this poem by Carl Sandburg.

It doesn't quite seem like a poem - more like a piece of prose, an impression really. I get a sense of a 1920s bootlegging scene - dunno if that was is his mind as he wrote, but something amoral, make-a-deal is going on.

And then that last bit about mittens! Cracks me up every time I read it. I suddenly imagine these criminal types high as the moon or drunk as crazy and coming up with this great idea of mitten wearing.

This poem wouldn't be worth anything to me without that slide of a last bit. It caught me off guard and made this poem memorable. I'm still giggling about it.

Favorite line: "There oughta be a law everybody wear mittens."

There oughta be a law everybody wear mittens.

Theme in Yellow (Carl Sandburg)

They still have the vampire Mona Lisa picture up on poets.org, but tonight I went for a seasonal poem rather than a Halloween one. I found Theme in Yellow by Chicago's own Carl Sandburg.

I love that Carl Sandburg managed to write a poem that conveys yellow, that is yellow, without having to repeat yellow or talk about burning suns and traffic lights. The scene is set with yellow, sure, the autumn-leaved trees on the hillside and the ready-for-harvest grain in the fields. But then he goes farther along the color wheel and pulls in shades of orange, black, smoke-white, and moldy green-yellow.

I think that if the general population were asked what color autumn is, they would name the colors that Carl Sandburg lists in this poem. They might even site examples that he includes himself--pumpkins, grain, the moon, and nighttime.

Personally, I think that this poem is a better portrait of fall than yesterday's was. Yes, Halloween is pretty much smack-dab in the middle of the season, but the essence has been distilled into this poem.

Favorite line: "I light the prairie cornfields/Orange and tawny gold clusters/And I am called pumpkins."