Folk artist Dvorak pays tribute to poet Carl Sandburg in Lisle February 17
LISLE IL - Illinois poet Carl Sandburg published his epic The People,Yes at the height of the Great Depression. Chicago-area folk artist Mark Dvorak didn’t discover the work until the 1990s.
“It’s a sweeping volume,” said the singer, who is working on his own collection of essays and poems. “I carried The People, Yes with me for a couple of years, before the idea came to present a selection of Sandburg’s written pieces with the folk songs from his American Songbag collection.”
The presentation “The People,Yes” takes place on Sunday, February 17 at 2:00 pm at the Lisle Public Library, 777 Front Street. Admission is free.
Dvorak will be accompanied by singers and instrumentalists from the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago.
Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois on January 6, 1878. He lived to become a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and biographer of Abraham Lincoln, novelist, journalist and children’s author.
He grew up in the fields of Illinois, traveled the Midwest by box car, campaigned for the Socialist party, was a film critic and an advocate for the city of Chicago. Sandburg’s poetry expresses the hearty, earthy nature of America, finding both soft and harsh beauty amongst her people.
Not only was Sandburg on of America’s best-loved poets, he was also a collector and performer of folk songs. In his travels across the United States Sandburg gave talks about poetry, read his verse and frequently closed the program with a session of songs, providing commentary along the way.
In 1927 his collection of songs was published as The American Songbag dedicated to “Those unknown singers who made songs - out of fun, love, grief - and to those many other singers who kept those songs as living things - out of fun, love, grief.”
For more information contact the Lisle Public Library at 630 971 1675. Visit the Lisle Public Library online at www.lislelibrary.org. For more information on Mark Dvorak visit www.markdvorak.com.