An American Classic

An American Classic. .

Give me a quiet garret alone , Where I may sit for a few casual callers , And tell them carelessly, offhandedly, , 'This is where I dirty paper.' , Thus each poet prays and dreams. , The eternal hobo asks for a quiet room , with a little paper he can dirty, , with birds who sit where he tells 'em. , Carl Sandburg, Breathing Tokens, 1945

He was sixty-seven and world-famous when he resettled here on this quiet hilltop in 1945 with his wife, daughters, and grandchildren, this unorthodox poet, journalist, children's writer, political activist, lecturer, folksinger, and popular biographer of Lincoln., His long road to this North Carolina farm started on the prairies of Illinois in 1878. The maverick son of struggling Swedish immigrants, young Carl wanted above all to be known as an American. He found his literary voice, not in Paris or New York, but working in small Midwestern towns and farms, and on the streets of Chicago and Milwaukee. He loved the words of the heartland he collected on his travels, and experimented with their shapes and sounds. By the 1920s, he was widely acknowledged to be a "Poet of the People.", Called a "passionate champion of those who did not have the words or the power to speak for themselves," Carl Sandburg's voice spoke loudly to the feelings and thoughts of his fellow Americans for two-thirds of the 20th century. , After Sandburg died in 1967, Congress established his home as a National Historic Site. This is the first unit of the National Park Service created to honor an American poet., Here, you can experience the life, works, and legacy of Carl Sandburg.