THERE is a wolf in me ... fangs pointed for tearing gashes ... a red tongue for raw meat ... and the hot lapping of blood--I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me ... a silver-gray fox ... I sniff and guess ... I pick things out of the wind and air ... I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers ... I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me ... a snout and a belly ... a machinery for eating and grunting ... a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun--I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me ... I know I came from saltblue water-gates ... I scurried with shoals of herring ... I blew waterspouts with porpoises ... before land was ... before the water went down ... before Noah ... before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me ... clambering-clawed ... dog-faced ... yawping a galoot's hunger ... hairy under the armpits ... here are the hawk-eyed hankering men ... here are the blond and blue-eyed women ... here they hide curled asleep waiting ... ready to snarl and kill ... ready to sing and give milk ... waiting--I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird ... and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want ... and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes--And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart--and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where--For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

Carl Sandburg

An appreciation of 'Wilderness' by Carl Sandburg

'Wilderness' is the last in Sandburg's Cornhuskers 1918 anthology. It appears as a relatively conventional seven verse poem in modern verse form. It is published at www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/sandburg/22.html

Speaking in his own voice, the poet identifies characteristics of wild animals in the wilderness within himself. Each verse picks out characteristics of one beast. The poem has sequence and movement towards a climax, "I got a zoo, . . . a menagerie inside my ribs", to clinch the argument. This is no denial or contradiction of his humanness either; he recognises the paternal and maternal and lover's heart within him too. The poem concludes with strong assertions of self identity and his blood connection with the natural wilderness.

His predominant device is metaphor where the poet does not just liken himself to the wild beasts in similes but in various striking metaphors identifies himself as the wolf, the hog, the galoot, etc. Further, the wilderness itself is personified as if it owns those parts of him and will not let them go; it even assumes a preternatural existence as he lives by its imperatives, "I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so." It belongs to the essentials of life itself since it predates history "before Noah. . before the first chapter of Genesis." The wilderness becomes both eternal and substantially present.

The diction is relatively simple in keeping with the persona and the subject matter. There is plenty of alliteration, onomatopoeia and imagery: "red tongue for raw meat", "clambering-clawed", "scurried with shoals of herring". Some striking transferred epithets tantalise: "Sierra crags of what I want", "the foothills of my wishes", and "Chattanoogas of hope." There are thematic oxymoronic elements too: "ready to snarl and kill . . .ready to sing and give milk", that accentuate the extremes of raw instinct, appetite and desire he identifies are part of his nature.

The poet naturally enough locates himself within his own country with mention of the Rocky and Chattanooga Mountains and the Ozark Hills but this does not compromise a universal application to any reader. How the female of the species reads this poem, I am not sure but then maybe I am being sexist too in expecting that only males will relate to its assertive physicality. Anyway, I always find that adolescent males readily enjoy this poem.

I like 'Wilderness'; it is easily accessible and says something novel to me about modern man's need to express his freedom beyond the conventional constraints of modern urban life. Despite its art, it has a authentic feel about it. Sandburg has successfully connected with the primitive instincts that society would have him deny.

G. Smith July 1999

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