Killers by Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg Born in 1878 to a poor Swedish family Rejected by West Point because he failed the test in arithmetic and grammar Fought in the Spanish-American war Moved to Wisconsin where he became active in the socialist movement Was flagged as a “security risk” because of his writing by the FBI in 1912

Carl Sandburg Considered “the successor to Walt Whitman” because of his spirited literature about America His biography “Abraham Lincoln: The War Years” won the Pulitzer prize for history in 1940 He died in 1967 of a heart attack

Killers I am singing to you Soft as a man with a dead child speaks; Hard as a man in handcuffs, Held where he cannot move:     Under the sun Are sixteen million men, Chosen for shining teeth, Sharp eyes, hard legs, And a running of young warm blood in their wrists.   

Killers   And a red juice runs on the green grass; And a red juice soaks the dark soil. And the sixteen million are killing. . . and killing         and killing.     I never forget them day or night: They beat on my head for memory of them; They pound on my heart and I cry back to them, To their homes and women, dreams and games.

Killers     I wake in the night and smell the trenches, And hear the low stir of sleepers in lines-- Sixteen million sleepers and pickets in the dark: Some of them long sleepers for always, Some of them tumbling to sleep to-morrow for always, Fixed in the drag of the world's heartbreak, Eating and drinking, toiling. . . on a long job of killing. Sixteen million men.

Killers An additional reading… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rvuBQ1p6Qw

The Speaker The speaker of the poem is a former soldier, presumably of World War I The speaker is almost certainly a man He has been profoundly affected by the war and has had time to consider his own stance on it

The subject and the speaker’s attitude towards it The primary subject of the poem is war, probably World War I The speaker takes a decidedly anti-war tone in the poem He believes that he must “sing” his opinion because no one will listen if he just talks Acknowledges the massive amount of death that war entails, especially for the youth

The subject and the speaker’s attitude towards it A subject within the central theme is the the soldiers The speaker attempts to reach out to the soldiers still fighting in the war, to convince them to stop He tells of his memory of soldiers sleeping in the trenches

Organization 6 stanzas of 4 lines (except for the 2nd stanza which has 5 lines) Free verse Fairly consistent with the use of one sentence per stanza (the exception is the 3rd stanza, which uses two)

Organization The poem is broken into 4 sections… Section 1 (lines 1-4) introduces the speaker as someone who is singing this sad story of war to his audience. He compares the experience of war to losing a child and being arrested.

Organization Section 2 (lines 5-13) introduces the youth of the country who are chosen for war. It then illustrates how the soldiers’ sole purpose in the war is killing and there is much bloodshed. Section 3 (lines 14-17) deals with the speaker’s memory of war and how he tries to remind the soldiers still fighting of better things in life so they might be compelled to stop.

Organization Section 4 (lines 18-25) portrays for the audience a glimpse of trench warfare. It also emphasizes the monotonous routine that is established in the war; one of “eating and drinking, toiling… on a long job of killing.”

Imagery The speaker makes use of depressing imagery to convey his point The line: “soft as a man with a dead child speaks” notes, that war, like losing a child is exceptionally difficult to deal with. The next line: “hard as a man in handcuffs” shows how being in war is like going to jail in that you don’t know what to expect, but you expect it to be a bad experience.

Imagery In saying “a red juice runs on the green grass” the poem points out the death that is noticed by the general population. On the same note, “a red juice soaks the dark soil” serves to remind that there is death in war that goes unnoticed. “Their homes and women, dreams and games” come to represent some of the things other than human life that soldiers sacrifice by going to war.

Diction and Syntax The language is mature and in dialogue format; as if the speaker is telling a story Employs a simple vocabulary and sentence structure There is a repeated use of the combination of s/sh sounds and h sounds in the first two stanzas

Diction and Syntax I am singing to you Soft as a man with a dead child speaks; Hard as a man in handcuffs, Held where he cannot move:     Under the sun Are sixteen million men, Chosen for shining teeth, Sharp eyes, hard legs, And a running of young warm blood in their wrists.

Conclusions “Killers” takes a fairly popular literary subject of war and uses a first person speaker to portray a depressing image of war in hopes that war might come to an end all together. The poem denounces war, not openly, but through both the title and the speaker’s memory. The title, “Killers” rejects the notion that there is a just cause for war and suggests that everyone involved becomes a murderer while the speaker’s memory instills within the reader a picture of the horrors of war while focusing on the specific action of killing, rather than death or suffering as is typically portrayed in poems about war.