Ever the Winds of Chance: POEMS - Softcover

Sandburg, Carl

4

6 ratings by Goodreads

9780252068485: Ever the Winds of Chance: POEMS

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0252068483 ISBN 13: 9780252068485

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 1999

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Now published for the first time, Ever the Winds of Chance is Sandburg's evocative sequel to Always the Young Strangers (1953), "the best autobiography ever written by an American" (Robert E. Sherwood, New York Times). Though left unfinished at his death, the sequel provides a wry, nostalgic chronicle of Sandburg's college years and early adulthood, a restless decade for a young man still in quest of his calling.
Ever the Winds of Chance opens in 1898 when the twenty-year-old Sandburg, recently returned from the Spanish-American war, enrolls at Lombard College in his native Galesburg, Illinois. Sandburg writes about his job at the fire station; his teachers, inspired or otherwise; his classmates and their camaraderie; his observations on great literary works and writers; and his own writings for the school newspaper, literary review, and yearbook and for the Galesburg Mail. But he also includes much about life between school years and after college, recounting his various brief careers as a fireman, salesman of stereoscopic views, advertising copywriter, vagabond, "jailbird," and budding poet and socialist. Together these reminiscences provide an intimate look at the formative years of a preeminent figure in American letters.

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About the Author:

Margaret Sandburg, the daughter of Carl and Lilian Steichen Sandburg, lives in Asheville, North Carolina. In 1978 she edited Breathing Tokens, her father's unpublished poems. She is now preparing for publication the love letters exchanged between her parents. George Hendrick is professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author and editor of numerous books and articles on American literature including Toward the Making of Thoreau's Modern Reputation (with Fritz Oehlshlaeger).

Review:

"From reading this book, it would have been no surprise to learn that this hardworking, clean-living young man became a general or statesman or biographer. It is, rather, a surprise that he became a poet, for this is no portrait of the artist as a young man. There is no spiritual or emotional struggle-no burning desires, no humiliating defeats, no elations, jealousies, illusions. Rather, this is a portrait of a mind expanding, testing itself, measuring itself as it measures others." - Barbara Fisher Williamson, New York Times Book Review "Ever the Winds of Chance is wonderfully nostalgic as a record of a time when people had a rough plenty but appreciated it; when everyone worked and lived more deeply because of it; and when men had honor and women virtue. In his evocation of time it is as though a window opens and a breeze you can taste comes into the room."- Robert W. Smith, Plain Dealer "The book reveals the inner turbulence of the young poet and socialist and describes the many forces that halped to shape his life and career." -Publishers Weekly "A welcome addition to the Sandburg canon... It touches and illuminates a crucial time in the development of a memorable American writer."-Douglas L. Wilson, Western Illinois Regional Studies "There is an engaging scrapbook style to Ever the Winds of Chance which captures the emotional momentum of a success story in the making, even while Sandburg is pasting up the pedestrian details of daily life... Wonderful in the way that new growth can so brilliantly understate its possibilities, Ever the Winds of Chance reveals a psyche never very far removed from the society and culture that tempered it. "-Ronald Curran, World Literature Today "The stylistic simplicity, the perceptions and comments, are pure Sandburg; and the historical detail, even apart from the biographical, is engaging in its evocation of the Midwest and America at the turn of the century... A valuable document for anyone interested in this important literary figure. "-Barry Silesky, Chicago "What we have here is an intimate look at the literary growth of one of the great writers of this century and at the intellectual influences that helped to shape his mind. Sandburg writes with rich and surprising detail about people and events that occupied his life 50 years before... [An] important and useful portion of American literary history. "-Choice "Fascinating ... A seeker's tale, the portrait of a boy finding his direction in life, and one that binds with the spell of unexpected intimacy. "-San Diego Magazine "This is a thoroughly delightful memoir, written out of nothing more than the sheer joy, and sometimes pain, of remembering. Sandburg summons up the past with a vividness and particularity which is really quite extraordinary. A perfectly lovely, fresh and unaffected piece of writing."-William H. Pritchard, author of Lives of the Modern Poets

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