Born Jan. 6, 1878, in Galesburg, Ill.; died July 22, 1967, in Flat Rock, N.C. American poet.

Sandburg’s first volume of verse was Chicago Poems (1916). His collections Cornhuskers (1918) and Smoke and Steel (1920) revealed a deep concern with social problems. Sandburg’s poetry is marked by urban imagery and journalistic language. His mastery of free verse, which is similar to the language of folk songs, is apparent in The American Songbag (1927). Sandburg’s narrative poem The People, Yes (1936) is written in the tradition of W. Whitman; it reflects Sandburg’s radical attitudes during the “red” 1930’s. A philosophical lyricism pervades Sandburg’s later work, as seen in Honey and Salt (1963). Two widely known works by Sandburg are the historical novel Remembrance Rock (1948) and the six-volume biography Abraham Lincoln (1926–39; Russian translation, 1961). In 1959, Sandburg visited the USSR.