CARL SANDBURG
About The Poet
-Carl Sandburg was a well known American editor and writer and above all best
known for his poems.
-He has won three Pulitzer prizes, in which two were for his poetry and one for the
biography written about Abraham Lincoln. He began his writing career as a journalist
for the Chicago Daily News.
-Most of his poems were about Chicago where he lived. Among his collection
the “Fog” is the shortest poem and a poem that has strong reflections.
•The Poem
• In the poem FOG, Sandburg has put in hardly 25 words, but yet the
poem does have a deeper and strong meaning.
•Carl Sandburg's poem, "Fog," is among the few exceptions that mark
Sandburg's break from free verse poetry.
• Fog", a mere six lines long, is written in verse-form and is an
innocent expression of finding beauty in an ordinary world.
• The first two lines of the poem just simply describe how a fog comes
in. usually fogs are seen in cold areas or in mountains or forests.
• However, in this poem the poet describes about fog in cities and a
harbor.
•The Poem
• He gives a wonderful comparison between the fog and a kitten.
• When a kitten comes around us, most of the time it just comes
so slowly that you hardly notice, till you see it or feel it.
• The same is the case with the fog. An arrival of fogs cannot
be predicted.
• It just comes in and engulfs the entire place that it is and stays on for
some time, creating trouble for anyone in between it, but still stays as
though it is not aware of the happenings around it.
•The Poem
• The narrator further develops the comparison between cat and fog in the
second stanza of the poem. In this stanza, the fog has arrived above the city
where It sits looking / over harbor and city much as a cat does when it
arrives at its destination.
• The cat will sit and look out over the land or cityscape. Cats, from wild to
domesticated, have a habit, maybe an instinct, of looking over their
surroundings from elevated spots. For example, the cougar watches from
the mountaintop or ledge, the lion from a hill overlooks the plains, and the
house cat gazes from a tree branch or window ledge.
• In each case, the cat acts as if it is the master of its universe, yet it holds
many secrets that are never revealed. Cats are notoriously fickle, refusing
to be trained or to succumb to others' expectations of them.
• Similarly, the fog, because of its power and mystery, remains elusive to
those wishing to break through its impenetrable walls.
•The Poem
• Next, the narrator states that the fog is sitting on silent haunches as
it looks out over the harbor and city, and, indeed, few creatures can
sit as silently and patiently as the cat. Cats typically sit on their
haunches as they stare out at the world.
• This particular stance, unique to the cat, enables them to keep watch
over their surroundings, but also be ready to take off if necessary.
When a cat is on its haunches, they cannot be captured because it is
easy for them to escape with a quick jump. This stance also implies
that their presence is always temporary. Cats, like fog, are always
ready to move on when it pleases them.
•The Poem
• Finally, the narrator explains that after looking over harbor and city
the fog then moves on.
•Cats are known to be wandering creatures, stopping for a time and
then moving on from destination to destination.
• Again, the fog is compared to the cat in that the fog hovers silently,
but it never stays in one place too long. Fog either rolls on to another
destination or disappears altogether.
•The Poem
• The next four lines of the poem states that it just comes, sit at the
harbor and looks at the city and is at the silent haunches and then
finally moves on.
• Here the poet has described what happens once the fog has
arrived.
•The Poem
• Now, Fogs as such do not cause any harm, as it is silent and the onset
is slow. However, when the fog is around, especially in the city, many
accidents may occur for the only reason that people cannot see
anything in-between them.
• There are occasions, when people fall into telephone holes, cars may
hit onto each other.
•People may walk up the wrong place, at the harbor, boats may drive
up on the wrong bridges, or they may drive up on another boat
and many such instances.
• Therefore, a fog just comes in like a small and silent kitten, and just
sits and watches the beauty, but when it is over a city, the incidents
caused by the fog are many.
•The Poem
• And the last line states that , just a small child, who gets bored
playing the same game over and over again or just by seeing the same
sight again and again, and moves on to the next, similarly, the fog also
does not stay in one place for a long time.
• This is a very small poem describing the nature’s act in a beautiful
manner. after the pranks are over, the fog also moves on.
