Tag: Illinois Authors

Meet the Poets: Carl Sandburg – 1919 and 1951 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1940 Pulitzer Prize for History

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“I make it clear why I write as I do and why other poets write as they do. After hundreds of experiments, I decided to go my own way in style and see what would happen.” – Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He received three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry and another for his history, a biography of Abraham Lincoln.

Sandburg was almost unknown to the literary world when, in 1914, a group of his poems appeared in the nationally circulated Poetry magazine.

Two years later his book Chicago Poems was published, and the thirty-eight-year-old author found himself on the brink of a career that would bring him international acclaim.

Sandburg published another volume of poems, Cornhuskers, in 1918, and wrote a searching analysis of the 1919 Chicago race riots.

More poetry followed, along with Rootabaga Stories (1922), a book of fanciful children’s tales. That book prompted Sandburg’s publisher, Alfred Harcourt, to suggest a biography of Abraham Lincoln for children. Sandburg researched and wrote for three years, producing not a children’s book, but a two-volume biography for adults. His Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, published in 1926, was Sandburg’s first financial success.

With the financial success, he moved to a new home on the Michigan dunes and devoted the next several years to completing four more volumes, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940.

Sandburg continued his prolific writing, publishing more poems, a novel, Remembrance Rock, a second volume of folk songs, and an autobiography, Always the Young Strangers.

In 1945 the Sandburg family moved with their herd of prize-winning goats and thousands of books to Flat Rock, North Carolina.

Sandburg’s Complete Poems won him a second Pulitzer Prize in 1951. Sandburg died at his North Carolina home July 22, 1967. His ashes were returned, as he had requested, to his Galesburg birthplace. In the small Carl Sandburg Park behind the house, his ashes were placed beneath Remembrance Rock, a red granite boulder. Ten years later the ashes of his wife were placed there.

Source:  Pulitzer Awards 1919, Pulitzer Awards 1940, and Pulitzer Awards 1951

For more on Carl Sandburg see: http://carl-sandburg.com/biography.htm

The Toynbee Convector by Ray Bradbury

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Toynbee Convector

Spoiler alert! Spoilers are in this review!

I first read this collection of short stories in 1992.  It includes a reprint of the 1983 story, “The Toynbee Convector” that appeared in the January 1984 issue of “Playboy.”  

Here is the story plot/summary.  The story’s protagonist claims to have returned from the future.  He has tapes and films of a miraculous technological wonderland.  Humankind has solved all its major problems – no cancer, no world hunger, etc.  This energizes the world with confidence.  People believe that their dreams will come true.  They proceed to build that future.  

They have no idea that future is all a lie.  The lie pictures a wondrous future.  It describes this future in breath-taking detail.  There is almost an action plan with hints as to how to get there.  The world’s brain trust of scientists, economists, and politicians take the clues and make this future a reality.  

Then comes the day when we are at the time and place where the protagonist is to appear from the past in the created future.  A major deflection occurs.  You have to read the story for the conclusion.  It is worth reading.  

The book has twenty-two other stories.  While the other stories in the collection are good and “worth the read,” none match the opening story.  The majority are reprints from magazine articles.  

I nominate the short story of “The Toynbee Convector” for the best fantasy/science fiction short story ever written.  It is that good.  

 

Signature RB

 

Photo Sources: The cover of the hardbound first edition along with Ray Bradbury’s signature inside the first edition.

Martian Mondays: The Martian Chronicles – Chapter Twelve: The Fire Balloons

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Chapter Twelve – The Fire Balloons – This story first appeared as “…In This Sign” in Imagination, April 1951.

A missionary expedition of Episcopal priests from the United States anticipates sins unknown to them on Mars. Instead, they meet ethereal creatures glowing with blue flames in crystal spheres, who have left the material world, and thus have escaped sin.

This story appeared in six editions of The Martian Chronicles. It was in The Silver Locusts, the British edition of The Martian Chronicles. The 1974 edition from The Heritage Press has it. The September 1979 illustrated trade edition from Bantam Books, the “40th Anniversary Edition” from Doubleday Dell Publishing Group and in the 2001 Book-of-the-Month Club edition has it. It otherwise appeared in The Illustrated Man.

A 1997 edition of the book advances all the dates by 31 years. This story advances from November 2002 to 2033.

Jimmie Aaron Kepler

Jimmie Aaron Kepler is a writer of speculative fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and reviews books. He’s written for Poetry & Prose Magazine, vox poetica, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Bewildering Stories, Beyond Imagination Literary Magazine, Thinking About Suicide.com, Author Culture, FrontRowLit.com, The Baseball History Podcast, Writing After Fifty, Sunday School Leadership, Church Leadership, Motivators For Sunday School Workers, The Deacon, Preschool Leadership, Sunday School Leader, and The Baptist Program. For sixteen years, he wrote a weekly newspaper column. He has written five fiction and poetry books. All are available on Amazon.com. His blog “Kepler’s Military History Book Reviews” was named a 100 Best Blogs for History Buffs and has had over 750,000 visitors.

Martian Mondays: The Martian Chronicles – Chapter Eleven: Night Meeting

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This story first appeared in The Martian Chronicles. This story begins with a conversation between an old man and a young traveler, Tomás Gomez. The older man explains that he came to Mars because he appreciates the new and novel. Even everyday things have become amazing to him once again. He has returned full circle to his childhood. Later, Tomás encounters a Martian named Muhe Ca. Each can see the Mars he is accustomed to, in his own time frame, but the other person is transparent to him and has the appearance of a phantom. The young man sees ruins where the Martian sees a thriving city while the Martian sees an ocean where Tomás sees the new Earth settlement. Neither knows if he precedes the other in time, but Bradbury makes the point that anyone civilization is ultimately fleeting. “Night Meeting” is the only full-length story in The Martian Chronicles which had not previously appeared in another publication.

A 1997 edition of the book advances all the dates by 31 years. This story advances from 2002 to 2033.

Martian Mondays: The Martian Chronicles – Chapter Ten: The Locusts

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Chapter Ten – “The Locusts” – This story first appeared in The Martian Chronicles. This vignette concerns the swift colonization of Mars. The title refers to the rockets and settlers that quickly spread across all of Mars.

A 1997 edition of the book advances all the dates by 31 years. This story is advanced from February 2002 to 2033.

Martian Mondays: The Martian Chronicles – Chapter Nine: The Green Morning

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“The Green Morning” first appeared in The Martian Chronicles.

The next several chapters describe the transformation of Mars into another Earth. Small towns similar to those on Earth begin to grow.

In “The Green Morning”, one man, Benjamin Driscoll, makes it his mission to plant thousands of trees on the red plains so oxygen levels will increase. Due to some property of the Martian soil, the trees he plants grow into a mighty forest in a single night.

A 1997 edition of the book advances all the dates by 31 years. This story advances from 2001 to 2032.

Martian Mondays: The Martian Chronicles – Chapter Eight: The Settlers

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In chapter eight, “The Settlers”, Spender returns to the rest of the expedition. He carries a gun and shoots six of his crew-mates, saying he is the last Martian. Captain Wilder approaches under a white flag and has a short discussion with Spender during which the archaeologist explains that if he manages to kill off the expedition it may delay human colonization of the planet for a few more years, possibly long enough that the expected nuclear war on Earth will protect Mars from human colonization completely.

Although he opposes Spender’s methods, Captain Wilder somewhat agrees with his attitude towards colonization and wishes for him a humane death. He returns to the others and joins them as they pursue Spender, and Wilder shoots Spender in the chest during the fight before he can be killed by anyone else. The captain later knocks out the teeth of Parkhill, another expedition member, when he disrespectfully damages some Martian glass structures while “target practicing.”

Many of the characters of the Fourth Expedition — Parkhill, Captain Wilder, and Hathaway — re-appear in later stories.

“The Settlers” is the first story that displays a central theme of The Martian Chronicles. It acts as a commentary on the Western frontier of the United States and its colonization, using the colonization of Mars as the analogy.

Like Spender, Bradbury’s message is that some types of colonization are right, and others are wrong. Trying to recreate Earth is viewed as wrong, but an approach that respects the fallen civilization that is being replaced is right.

In the before mentioned version, this short story describes the first settlers coming to Mars, the Lonely Ones, the ones that came to start over on the planet. It first appeared in The Martian Chronicles.

A 1997 edition of the book advances all the dates by 31 years. “The Settlers” date advances from 2001 to 2032.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

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Fahrenheit 451

The genesis of Fahrenheit 451 is in Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles where he has the story of book burning. Published in 1953, Fahrenheit 451 is as relevant today as it was when it first went into print.

Set in an unspecified city, Fahrenheit 451 is set at some unspecified time in the future. “The Fireman” novella, which was expanded to become Fahrenheit 451. The setting was October 2052.

Divided into three parts: “The Hearth and the Salamander”, “The Sieve and the Sand”, and “Burning Bright” it is a book about political correctness. They burn those books that make certain groups feel bad about themselves. The fireman in Bradbury’s book don’t put out fires; they start fires. They search out and burn books. It is a crime, in this society, to own or read books. I would not want to live in this society.

Knowledge is evil. The television walls of their homes are how people receive all of their cultures.

Guy Montag is a fireman who loves his work. He likes nothing better than to spray kerosene on a pile of books, watch the pages curl and turn into flakes of black ash that flutter through the air.

One day he meets Clarisse, a girl who knows about a world of books, thoughts, and ideas. Their conversations precipitate a crisis of faith in Guy. He begins to steal books and hide them in his home.

His wife discovers what he is doing. She becomes terrified. She turns him in. He is forced to burn his beloved collection. Guy flees to avoid being arrested. He joins an outlaw band of scholars who are trying to keep the contents of important books in their heads.

The novel has won multiple awards. In 1954, it won the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature and the Commonwealth Club of California Gold Medal. It has since won the Prometheus “Hall of Fame” Award in 1984 and a 1954 “Retro” Hugo Award, one of only four Best Novel Retro Hugos ever given, in 2004. Bradbury was honored with a Spoken Word Grammy nomination for his 1976 audiobook version.

Martian Mondays: The Martian Chronicles – Chapter Six: The Third Expedition

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The Third Expedition was first published as “Mars is Heaven!” in Planet Stories, Fall 1948.

The arrival and demise of the third group of Americans to land on Mars is described by this story. This time the Martians are prepared for the Earthlings. When the crew arrives, they see a typical town of the 1920s filled with the long-lost loved ones of the astronauts.

Captain John Black tells his crew to stay in the rocket. The crew are so happy to see their dead family members that they ignore their captain’s orders and join their supposed family members. The Martians use the memories of the astronauts to lure them into their “old” houses where they are killed in the middle of the night by the Martians themselves. The next morning, sixteen coffins exit sixteen houses and are buried.

The original short story was set in the 1960s and dealt with characters nostalgic for their childhoods in the Midwestern United States in the 1920s. In the Chronicles version, which takes place forty years later but which still relies upon 1920s nostalgia, the story has a brief paragraph about medical treatments that slow the aging process, so that the characters can be traveling to Mars in the 2000s but still remember the 1920s.

A 1997 edition of the book advances all the dates by 31 years. This story is advanced from 2000 to 2031.

Martian Mondays: The Martian Chronicles – Chapter Five: The Taxpayer

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Chapter five, The Taxpayer, first appeared in The Martian Chronicles.

A man insists that he has a right to be let onto the next rocket to Mars, because he is a taxpayer. He insists on being let on the ship so strongly because the Earth will be having a great atomic war soon, and no one wants to be around when it happens. He is not allowed on the ship and eventually gets taken away by the police.

A 1997 edition of the book advances all the dates by 31 years. This story is advanced from 2000 to 2031.