Poetry Corner

Theme in Yellow

by Carl Sandburg

I spot the hills

With yellow balls in autumn.

I light the prairie cornfields

Orange and tawny gold clusters

And I am called pumpkins.

On the last of October

When dusk is fallen

Children join hands

And circle round me

Singing ghost songs

And love to the harvest moon;

I am a jack-o'-lantern

With terrible teeth

And the children know

I am fooling.

This poem is in the public domain.

About the poem: Carl Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois, on January 6, 1878. His parents had emigrated to the United States from Sweden, and the family was poor. Thus, Carl left school at the age of 13 to work odd jobs to help support the family. He then served in the military for 8 months in Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American war, and then attended Lombard College, leaving without a degree in 1903. He then went to work for a newspaper in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and joined the Wisconsin Social Democratic Party. After his marriage to Lilian Steichen, they moved to Chicago, where he had been offered a newspaper job. During his time in Chicago, he wrote three books of poems, of which Cornhuskers (1918) garnered him a Pulitzer Prize. He also wrote three children’s books during this time, as well as Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years. Sandburg won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for History for the four-volume The War Years, the sequel to his Abraham Lincoln books, and a third Pulitzer Prize in 1951 for Complete Poems.

Sandburg supported the Civil Rights Movement, and was the first white man to be honored by the NAACP with the Silver Plaque Award as a “major prophet of civil rights in our time”. He was also a writer and singer of folk music, accompanying himself on solo guitar. He died at the age of 89 in Flat Rock, North Carolina, on July 22, 1967.

Children Of The Night

by Ridley Williams

Within the darkness of a mind

the wheels may turn, the gears may grind,

for soon the goblins will be seen;

around the bend lies Halloween!

The days take on a deeper tone,

as rusty dusk chills every bone

and children walk with extra care,

for spirits could be anywhere!

Soon Jack-o-lanterns’ grind with pride

as bright eyes glow from fire inside

and steam from witch’s bubbling brew

slides down the lawn in smoky hue.

Tall reeds draw shadows ‘cross the path

as paling sun seems drowned in wrath.

Cold mist from porches will arise

to veil the truth before young eyes.

The streets then fill with raucous crowds

of children draped in ghostly shrouds;

they seek to fill their bags with weight

of treasure, as they pass each gate.

Then masked marauders flail the door;

in laughing voices they implore

a trick or treat before they go

or else T.P. will surely flow.

The evening runs its usual course,

and stomachs soon show staunch remorse

from eating all those yummy gifts,

as on kid’s beds form candied drifts.

And as the crowded streets dissolve

the ghosts of Halloween resolve

to treat those left in special ways,

as they work hard to pick up strays.

Another year of fun has passed

with mounds of calories amassed;

still, children love this time of year

when laughter melds with squeals of fear.