Cool Tombs

Carl Sandburg 1918

At the time of his death in 1967, Carl Sandburg was a popular icon, portrayed in Time and Newsweek magazines as a troubadour of the common man. When his poetry was first published, however, both his style and choice of subject matter were highly controversial. He was criticized for his use of free verse, as well as for incorporating the language of everyday speech into his poems. His subjects, drawn from the rich panorama of American life, were considered vulgar and inappropriate for poetry. His admirers, on the other hand, praised these same qualities, comparing him to Walt Whitman, an earlier poet who aroused similar artistic controversy when his first volume of poetry, Leaves of Grass, was published in 1855.

“Cool Tombs” appeared in Carl Sandburg’s second collection of poetry, Cornhuskers, published in 1918. His first book, called Chicago Poems, had focused on city life and the people who worked there. This second volume portrayed different aspects of midwestern America: the land, the people, their values, and their dreams. This poem is part of a section called “Haunts,” an appropriate designation, for the lines have the lyrical, haunting quality of a requiem.

Like many of Sandburg’s poems, “Cool Tombs” combines details of history with events in the lives of the common man. The poem describes the equalizing role of death, where both the famous and infamous, the powerful and the ordinary individual, come to rest “in the cool tombs.” In the absence of an eternal system of reward and punishment, Sandburg requests that the reader examine the value of existence and reflect on the qualities that make life meaningful.