"What Sandburg knew and said was what America knew from the beginning and said from the beginning and has not yet, no matter what is believed of her, forgotten how to say," wrote Archibald MacLeish about Carl Sandburg - that most American of poets - and his connection to the American psyche.

This new collection of Sandburg's poetry, which includes four previously unpublished Lincoln poems, contains selections from all of Sandburg's previous volumes and certainly supports MacLeish's confidence in the breadth of Sandburg's scope. In more than 150 poems, arranged in eleven sections - from Chicago to Poems of Protest to Lincoln to Anti-War Poems to Poet of the People - readers can see what Sandburg was made of and, in turn, what the poet thought the American people were made of.

Sandburg's aim was to write "simple poems... which continue to have an appeal for simple people," and throughout his life the poet strove to maintain that important connection. The Hendricks, in a thoughtful and comprehensive introduction, discuss how Sandburg's life and beliefs colored his work and why that work resonates with Americans today.