"A Revolver"

5 thoughts on “"A Revolver"”

1. What a great poem! And despite one's political leaning on the subject the statement is still powerful and stands.

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2. Exactly, +Jon Weber.

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3. Read this supposed discovery, then read genuine poems by Sandburg. The real ones are far better. This is a pastiche, written likely by the man who claimed to have discovered it. Sandburg used small and specific details to make his points. This fake has vague phrases–amazing language, unmistakable ultimatums, terrible story, and so forth–and wanders about before delivering an author sermon at the end. “Amazing” is a word worth considering by itself. Weak writers use that word when they can’t come up with a more precise description. Sandburg wasn’t weak.

   Ernie Gullerud, the supposed discoverer of this piece, said about it, “Golly, someone could have written this today.” Indeed. My guess is that he did.

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   1. Hmm. Well, looking at news coverage of the poem so far, it seems pretty positive:

      Sandburg scholars said there was little doubt the poem was, in fact, written by the poet, who died in 1967 at the age of 89. “This has all the marks of a Sandburg poem on it,” Valerie Hotchkiss says. “This is clearly written on Carl Sandburg’s dreadful onionskin typewriter paper.” [http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/01/23/carl_sandburg_a_revolver_newly_discovered_poem_about_guns_feels_surprisingly.html]

      After consulting with experts, the staff of the university’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library concluded that it was a genuine, unpublished and unknown work. “The paper is his paper, and the typewriter is his typewriter,” Valerie Hotchkiss, the library’s director, said. Sandburg scholars think the poem dates to the 1920s, or perhaps earlier. [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/19/books/carl-sandburg-poem-discovered.html?_r=0]

      (Hotchkiss is head of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Arguably she might have some incentive to support such an interesting finding at her library, but it would be a professional risk.)

      U. of I. English professor emeritus George Hendrick, who has published multiple volumes of Sandburg’s poems, said “A Revolver” appears to be from the writer’s later work. Hendrick speculated that the poem could be related to Lincoln’s assassination. “Sandburg wrote the multi-volume biography of Lincoln. … Lincoln was his great hero, and his great hero was cut down by a man who used a gun to end his existence,” Hendrick said. “It’s clear that Sandburg had very strong feelings about weapons being used to end the life of others.” [http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-01-21/news/ct-met-sandburg-poem-found-20130121_1_poem-carl-sandburg-debate-over-gun-control]

      (I would expect Hendrick to comment if the poem seems structurally or linguistically unlike Sandburg’s works.)

      “He has a lot of anti-war poems, poems that undercut the sense of war as the answer to whatever question somebody might have,” said [Sandburg scholar Kathryn Benzel.] “So the fact that he would write this poem … is really indicative of his perception of violence in society.” [http://chicagoist.com/2013/01/23/read_this_carl_sandburgs_lost_poem.php]

      Which isn’t to say that it might not be a fake, but I’m not seeing anyone else suggesting that at this point.

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4. I’ve sent messages to the university library and to Professor Hotchkiss but have received no reply as of yet. I’m curious to hear their reasons for believing in this poem.

   But compare this “discovery” to a sample of known Sandburg poems. Does the language sound authentic to you? Note that the articles merely report on the pronouncements of the experts, rather than going through their reasoning.

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