Smoke and Steel: Early Poetry of Carl Sandburg

This is Carl Sandburg's third book of poetry and his largest. It is also the most wide-ranging.

The title, Smoke and Steel, suggests the steel industry he knew in Chicago, Gary, and Pittsburgh, but he writes about many other things as well. His over-arching theme seems to be human life as a struggle in adversity, a struggle for the mere necessities of life - food, clothing, shelter, work - and a struggle for the human soul, a struggle for love, charity, justice, and equality. There is also ...