The Folk Songs You Never Sang In Grade School team has been quiet for the last couple of months. Keith battled a walnut and the walnut bested him, taking a broken wrist as payment for being trodden upon.
Keith has proved to be the tougher nut and his healing is proceeding well so we will be back in action soon.
We are very much looking forward to returning to the Carl Sandburg Historic Site in Galesburg, IL on Sunday, November 12 at 4 pm. Galesburg is a lovely town and we are always happy to be among fellow poetry aficionados.
I have long admired Sandburg’s poems but the last time we visited, I learned so much about the man that I had never known before:
- He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for poetry and one for Abraham Lincoln; The War Years, his biography of Abraham Lincoln (1940).
- He was the first white man to be honored by the NAACP with their Silver Plaque Award as a “major prophet of civil rights in our time.”
- He is regarded by some as the first American urban folk singer, accompanying himself on solo guitar at lectures and poetry recitals, and in recordings, long before either of the major folk revival movements.
- His 1927 anthology The American Songbag has inspired countless musicians for decades, including but not limited to Dan Zanes and Sufjan Stevens.
- He won a Grammy in 1957 for his recording of Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait with the New York Philharmonic.
- Sandburg was the only American poet ever invited to address a joint session of Congress.
If you’re not near Galesburg, please spread the word to family and friends. This is a very special community event and we’re so honored to be invited back.
