The New York Institute of Humanities at New York University will host “Carl Sandburg: Modernist?” on Wed., April 4, 6 p.m. at NYU’s Hemmerdinger Hall (100 Washington Square East at Washington Place). The event is free and open to the public. For further information, please call 212.998.2100.
The New York Institute of Humanities at New York University will host “Carl Sandburg: Modernist?” on Wed., April 4, 6 p.m. at NYU’s Hemmerdinger Hall (100 Washington Square East at Washington Place). The event is free and open to the public. For further information, please call 212.998.2100 or go to http://www.nyu.edu/fas/institute/nyih/public/upcoming.html.
Subway Lines: A, B, C, D, E, F, V (West 4th Street); R (8th Street); 6 (Astor Place)
The event is curated by Paul Berman, editor of the American Poets Project edition of Carl Sandburg: Selected Poems and a distinguished-writer-in-residence at NYU. Other participants include: poets Edward Hirsch, Geoffrey O’Brien, Meghan O’Rourke, and Harvey Shapiro; Princeton historian Sean Wilentz, who will read from Sandburg’s work and comment on it; composer Lukas Foss, who will perform a portion of Sandberg’s cantata on the piano, together with the Greenwich Village Singers; and painter Cornelia Foss, who will exhibit her new painting of Sandburg and will recall the friendship that she and Lukas Foss maintained with the poet.
In the years around 1914, when he wrote “Chicago,” Carl Sandburg was a leading figure in the American modernist movement a poet not just influenced by Ezra Pound, but championed by Pound. As late as 1943, Sandburg’s poem “Prairie” inspired a major work of modernist music, a cantata for chorus, and orchestra by the very young composer Lukas Foss, which was performed by the Boston Symphony under Serge Koussevitsky and later by the New York Philharmonic. Today, Sandburg’s early modernism has been overshadowed by his later work. He has been largely forgotten by other poets, and his modernist aspect, entirely forgotten. Foss’s cantata has disappeared from the repertory and is unavailable even on CD though Foss went on to be recognized as one of America’s major modernist composers, as well as a conductor and pianist.
EDITOR’S NOTE The New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU was established in 1976 for promoting the exchange of ideas between academics, professionals, politicians, diplomats, writers, journalists, musicians, painters, and other artists in New York City-and between all of them and the city. It currently comprises 186 fellows. Throughout the year, the NYIH organizes numerous public events and symposia.