poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

I always use this poem when introducing new A level students to poetry beyond GCSE. One interesting aspect is how Sandburg himself intended the poem to be laid out - I have seem four different arrangements of the lines Does anyone know FROM the original edition of Chicago poems of 1916??

It would also be good to know the Americal connotations of a limited express and any special significance of the choice of Omaha. to English students this does need unpacking - their connotations are vague, more likely centred on beaches in France. Any Americam school out there who would be interested in swopping poetry crits with my students please get in touch.

The Limited Epresses were probably the most advanced mode of travel of the time the poem was written. To modernize the poem you would need to use SST perhaps. Omaha , while in the center of the USA may or may not have some minor significance in and of itself, but the greater use is that the traveler thinks that is where he is going, though ultimately the journey leads to rust and dust.


I am riding on a SST, one of the crack planes of the world.
Hurtling across the sky into blue haze and dark air
go a hundred tons of metal holding a hundred people.
(All the metal shall be scrap and rust and all the men
and women laughing in First Class and Coach shall
pass to ashes.)
I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he
answers: "London."


Okay, a smoker on the SST doesn't work, but Sandburg uses mist so frequently to represent eternality, that it isn't possible to leave out the smoke, which serves a similar purpose here.

well reading this poem in my writing 151 class, i realized that the narrorator is a strider (wonderer) who is observing everything around him and whats in its right place. its as though he's already dead and he's viewing the people as life thats ultamately going to die into ashes and as the train itself nothing but scraps and rust in the end. but can't figure out the purpose of this poem, if its only to show the audience about how everything is destroyed or gone in the end. help me out email me please