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Mistakes Revealed In Carl Sandburg's Grass

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People often long for something to cover their mistakes. They long for the consequences of their mistakes to simply disappear, gone from mind and memory. However, when mistakes are covered up and consequences fade away, what then stops people from making the same error again? This dilemma is artfully covered -- no pun intended -- in Carl Sandburg’s “Grass.” In this poem, the grass “talks” about how it covers the mistakes of human beings. When it covers them, in this case, the bodies from brutal battlefields, people soon forget. Since they forget what happened there, they are bound to make the same mistakes again, as the poem concludes from listing five different battles, at different time periods, all with the same cost: hundreds, if not thousands, of lives taken. Using personification, imagery, and the Romanticism literary trend, this poem elegantly shows the reader the dark side of covering one’s mistakes. The personification of the grass allows the readers to see the problems with covering up one’s errors in a new light. The personification of the grass, allowing it to speak, is an intriguing concept that Carl Sandburg, the author, uses effectively. It’s as if Sandburg is allowing the readers to see what the grass would say, if only it could. Additionally, this personification forces the reader to stop and consider something that may not be …show more content…

The visual imagery poignantly appears in the first stanza, “shovel them under and let me work- I am the grass, I cover all.” This imagery produces a visual mind-picture that shows what people do with “them”- the dead bodies. People simply let the grass cover up the brutality of battles. It’s almost as if the grass, when personified, is indifferent to the terrible mistakes of humans. This is a disheartening image, one that causes the reader to question the wisdom of simply covering

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