Poetry Analysis: "Fire Dreams" by Carl Sandburg

Today, a day to be thankful for many reasons, the least of which for friends and family, good health, dignified and stimulating work, we celebrate Thanksgiving.  This is truly an American holiday.  Over the years I’ve posted various types of Thanksgiving messages.  I’ve posted George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation that is the root of the holiday, and I posted a heartfelt statement of gratitude to all my blogger friends, past and present.  I’ve posted on St. Paul’s prayer of gratitude at the beginning of his epistle to the Romans, and I posted on part of the Eucharistic prayer of thankfulness in the Mass.  There are other posts.  If you type in “Thanksgiving” in the little search box in the upper left of the blog you will pull them all up.

This year I wanted to post a Thanksgiving poem, and there are quite a few out there to select from.  It was hard choosing but I chose one that from the title one would not guess is on Thanksgiving.  It’s “Fire Dreams” by Carl Sandburg.  

 

At the time of Carl Sandburg’s death (1967) the United States was 191 years old if you consider 1776 as the birthdate of the country.  Sandberg lived to 89 years old, and so had lived through nearly half of the country’s lifespan.  And since he was born in 1878, he lived through the formative years of the United States entering the world stage and becoming the leader of the free world.  Sandburg saw the nation’s urbanization, the Spanish-American War, the two World Wars, the Great Depression, the African-American migration, the development of American music in Broadway musicals, Jazz, Gospel, and Rock and Roll, and so much more.  He was a distinctly American poet and, perhaps more specifically, a Midwestern and Chicagoan poet.  He won numerous awards in his lifetime and along with Robert Frost may have been seen as the two Great American poets in their day.  Sandburg’s poetry does not have the modernist sensibility, and so perhaps his reputation has come down after his life.  Still his poetry speaks to us simply and directly, especially as Americans. 

 

 

Fire Dreams

By Carl Sandburg

 

(Written to be read aloud, if so be, Thanksgiving Day)

 

 

I remember here by the fire,

In the flickering reds and saffrons,

They came in a ramshackle tub,

Pilgrims in tall hats,

Pilgrims of iron jaws,

Drifting by weeks on beaten seas,

And the random chapters say

They were glad and sang to God.

 

And so

Since the iron-jawed men sat down

And said, “Thanks, O God,”

For life and soup and a little less

Than a hobo handout to-day,

Since gray winds blew gray patterns of sleet on Plymouth Rock,

Since the iron-jawed men sang “Thanks, O God,”

You and I, O Child of the West,

Remember more than ever

November and the hunter’s moon,

November and the yellow-spotted hills.

 

And so

In the name of the iron-jawed men

I will stand up and say yes till the finish is come and gone.

God of all broken hearts, empty hands, sleeping soldiers,

God of all star-flung beaches of night sky,

I and my love-child stand up together to-day and sing: “Thanks, O God.”

 

It should be noted, the poem has a proem, an introductory line that sets the tone for the poem.  The proem stipulates the poem should be read aloud on Thanksgiving Day.

The poem body is in three stanzas of varying number of lines.  The first stanza has eight lines, the second eleven, and the third six.  The lines are in free verse of varying length, what I would call Whitman-esk lines.  Sandburg seems to have an affinity for Walt Whitman.  This poem is a very akin to Walt Whitman.

The situation is set in the first two lines: the poet sitting by a fire recalling the pilgrims of Plymouth Rock.  The poet imagines their ship which he refers to as a “ramshackle tub,” imagines the pilgrims in “tall hats,” and repeated three more times in the poem as “iron-jawed.”  Significantly, the poet imagines the pilgrims thanking God for the success of their voyage.  This is from where the tile, “Fire Dreams” comes from.  The poet is by what I imagine is a campfire (or perhaps a fireplace) and has images of the pilgrims come to mind.

In the second stanza the poet imagines the initial assistance the pilgrims received as they settled in the country.  The lines that imagines the assistance is superb: “For life and soup and a little less/Than a hobo handout to-day.”  Twice in the stanza they thank God and twice their “iron-jaw” disposition is referenced.  Interestingly, never in the poem does Sandburg allude to the Native-Americans who were the complementary half to the pilgrims’ feast.  The poet mentions his “Child of the West,” which I take is his child, and tells the child to remember the month of November and its association with the hunt that will provide for Thanksgiving, 

The third stanza brings the memory to a climax where the poet and his child stand up and “in the name of the iron-jawed men” and praise God in gratitude.  The pilgrim’s “iron-jaw” is referenced once more.

Several poeticisms should be highlighted.  First the imagery of the pilgrims stands in the foreground—the imagery of their hats, their sea voyage, their ship, Plymouth Rock, and the weather, and of course the pilgrim’s iron-jaw.”  The humility of accepting a “hobo” meal is also visually distinct.  In contrast, the image of the poet and his child by the fire stands in the background, and it seems that in the third stanza when the poet and child are ready to express their thanks they step into the foreground to take center stage.  That is a nice effect.

Second, the language of the poem is very American.  Hobo is an Americanism which seems to date to 1889.  The poem was published in 1918, about thirty years from when “hobo” was coined.  “Iron-jaw” is another Americanism and coined a little earlier than “hobo.”  Iron-jaw was coined in 1880.  While “pilgrim” and “ramshackle” are not Americanism, they have become much more frequent in the American lexicon.  They do feel American. 

Finally the “s” sound predominates the poem, and it does so to great effect.  We see and hear if spoken aloud the “s” alliteration of the words: saffrons, seas, soup, since, sleet, sang, says, sleep, so, spotted, star, and I think I may have missed a few still.  That is quite an amount in such a short poem.  Even more remarkable is the frequent ending of the words with the “s” sound.  Notice all the plurals: pilgrims, saffron, reds, seas, jaws, and so on.  I’m not going to list them all but Sandburg seems to go out of his way to make words plural.  He also chooses words that naturally end with “s”: less, West, and most importantly, “Thanks.”  The cumulative effect of all the “s” sounds prepares the listener for the climactic moment when the poet and child “stand” together and “sing,” “Thanks, O God.”  All those “s” prior to the last line prepare the reader/listener for the poet to stand into the foreground and repeat the words from the pilgrim’s lips.

What a wonderful poem.

Happy Thanksgiving all!