Grass

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1918

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Further Reading & Resources

Related Poems

“The Wound-Dresser” by Walt Whitman (1865)

An important poem to compare with Carl Sandburg’s anti-war poem given Sandburg’s acknowledgment of Whitman’s influence, this poem reflects Whitman coming to terms with the Civil War and what it meant to his perception of the grand American experiment. Like Sandburg, Whitman struggles to square his faith in the generosity and humanity of people with the grim evidence of war. Drawing on his experience as a volunteer nurse, the poem is told by an old man looking back on the horrors he witnessed in the field hospital and how those memories haunt him.

“Wars” by Carl Sandburg (1916)

In many ways a companion piece to “Grass,” this poem is a much balder statement of Sandburg’s pacifism. Without the experimental use of grass as a speaker, this poem specifically and forthrightly addresses Sandburg’s fears that the fast-approaching new age of warfare will unleash technology capable of much greater destruction than what the world witnessed in World War I.

“In Flanders Field” by John McCrae (1918)

One of the most powerful and most anthologized anti-war poems from the World War I era, this poem, written by a Canadian medic during the second siege of Ypres, uses the device of a dead soldier speaking from the grave. The poem echoes Sandburg’s notion that once a battle is over, the dead are too easily buried and too easily forgotten—in this case, beneath the poppy fields in Belgium and France.

Further Literary Resources

“The Meaning of Grass in Carl Sandburg’s Poem ‘Grass’” by Revida Engelbertha (2021)

In the spirit of full disclosure, this article is difficult to read, not because of its argument but because it is a translation, and the syntax tends to stumble. But it is the only major substantive piece about “Grass” published in the last generation. The article works every level of symbolism for grass, closing with the affirmation that, like Whitman, Sandburg offers grass as a symbol for the vital spiritual link between humanity and nature.

“War Poetry: Impacts on the British Understanding of World War One” by Holly Fleshman (2019)

Although not tackling Sandburg’s poem specifically, the article offers a broad and helpful summary of the evolution of anti-war poetry in British literature. Those poems, written often by soldiers involved firsthand in the long and savage war, came to offer increasingly darker visions of the war that centered on the rise of technology, the incompetence of governments, and the ineptness of the military as the body counts rose.

“Those Who Write Poems” by Carl Sandburg (1942)

Essential reading published in The Atlantic, this essay cogently explores Sandburg’s own perception of the vitality and importance of free verse. In challenging Robert Frost in all but name, whose diatribes against free verse as careless and amateurish were well known, Sandburg explains with gentle, wry humor how intricate his so-called “careless” poems are, and how the poet uses the license of open verse to create an individual voice rather than maintain strict adherence to arbitrary arithmetical expectations.

Listen to Poem

Carl Sandburg reads “Grass”

Carl Sandburg recites his own poem in this YouTube video uploaded by Tim Gracyk. Note that Sandburg adds “Stalingrad” to his list of battlefields in this reading, and that the recording repeats at the one-minute, four-second mark.