American poet biography of abraham lincoln coin

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During his lifetime, Sandburg was widely regarded as "a major figure in contemporary literature", especially for volumes of his collected verse, including Chicago Poems (1916), Cornhuskers (1918), and Smoke and Steel (1920). The site can serve as a useful guide to one of the most popular United States coin series.

Presidential Picks: Abraham Lincoln's Favorite Poetry

If Abraham Lincoln's leadership is any indication of his ability to navigate America's complex cultural landscape, then you might want to take heed of Lincoln's recommended reading list.

This design remained in use for the first 50 years of the series. Compiled from the president's biographers' list of works he read, many of these poems were included in his intimate correspondence, memorized in private, or even recited on cue. It is the soliloquy of the King, after the murder. He enjoyed "unrivaled appeal as a poet in his day, perhaps because the breadth of his experiences connected him with so many strands of American life".

Lincoln took down a well-worn copy of Byron (which no boy's library at that time was without) and, readily turning to the third canto of Childe Harold, read aloud from the 34th verse [stanza], commencing:

"There is a very life in our despair," etc., to and including the 45th verse...

{C}This poetry was very familiar to him evidently; he looked specifically for, and found it with no hesitation, and read it with a fluency that indicated that he had read it oftentimes before.

In 1959, the design was changed to a view of the Lincoln Memorial designed by Frank Gasparro. . The poet Robert Pinsky writes that—

The United States has had a head of state who was also a great writer. Great in the astonishing range of analysis and combination . When he died in 1967, President Lyndon B.

Johnson observed that "Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius.
/ Shroudless and tombless they sunk to their rest,' when, Brooks said, 'his voice faltered, and he gave me the book with the whispered request, 'You read it; I can't.'"⁸
"A Man's A Man For A' That"
by Robert Burns
At the 1865 annual banquet of Washington D.C.'s Robert Burns Club, when President Lincoln was asked to toast the poet, he replied: "I cannot frame a toast to Burns.

It always struck me as one of the finest touches of nature in the world"⁴:
... The coins of this time period are commonly referred to as Wheat Cents. He was America."

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What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood?
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow?

Roy P. Basler, (Rutgers University Press, 1953)
³Illustrated Life of Abraham Lincoln, Joseph H. Barrett (Moore, Wilstacii & Baldwin, 1860)
⁴Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln, Francis B. Carpenter (Hurd & Houghton, 1866).
⁵Lincoln to James H. Hackett, 17 August 1863, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed.

Only Marcus Aurelius can compete with Abraham Lincoln.

In his introduction to The Poets' Lincoln: Tributes in verse to the Martyred President, editor O. H. Oldroyd argues that Abraham Lincoln's political speeches, such as "The Gettysburg Address," function on the same level as "vers libre," going so far as to lineate the president's speech into free verse¹⁴:

It is altogether fitting and proper
That we should do this.
But, in a larger sense,
We cannot dedicate—
We cannot consecrate—
We cannot hallow—
This ground.

Whether his poetic prose was poetry, or not, the latter informed his thought—and thus a country's.

¹"Second Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions," February, 1959
²Lincoln to Andrew Johnston, 18 April 1846, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed.

Notably, this represented the first time that the likeness of an actual person was depicted on a circulation coin series.

Reverse Design

The reverse design of the Lincoln Cent initially featured a pair of wheat stalks designed by Brenner.

Guide to U.S. Lincoln Cents

The Lincoln Cent was introduced in 1909 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of birth of President Abraham Lincoln.

It can all be condensed into a single sentence, and that sentence you will find in Gray's Elegy: 'The short and simple annals of the poor.'"⁶

That he refers to a sentence fragment makes the sentiment perhaps even more fitting. Thinking of what he has said, I cannot say anything which seems worth saying."⁹

"The Raven"
by Edgar Allan Poe

Though Abraham Lincoln and Edgar Allan Poe never formally interacted, John T.

Stuart reports that the president "carried Poe around on the Circuit—read and loved 'The Raven'—repeated it over & over."¹⁰

Published in 1845, "The Raven" was popular enough to inspire a number of parodies—including one by Lincoln's fellow attorney, Andrew Johnston "in which an experience with a polecat replaced Poe's conversation with his feathered midnight visitor." According to biographer Benjamin Thomas, Lincoln read the parody first, then later "sought out Poe's original poem, which had been written the previous year."¹¹

"Thanatopsis"
by William Cullen Bryant

William H.

Townsend writes that during a visit to Mary Todd's Lexington home in November, 1847, Abraham Lincoln spent much of his time in their library reading.