Poet Carl Sandburg Captivates Capacity Crowd at DePauw

October 10, 1958

October 10, 1958, Greencastle, Ind. - "Don't be afraid of loneliness," acclaimed poet Carl Sandburg told students at DePauw University today. "The accomplishments of great men have come out of hours of loneliness."

The three-time Pulitzer Prize winner addressed a capacity crowd this morning at the weekly chapel. The program included the poet's musings on a number of topics, as well as readings and a musical performance by Sandburg.

With bombers and advancing technologies, he noted, "We are to the point now where more civilians are killed in wars than soldiers."

Sandburg also took on a growing force in the American living room, the television set. "Priceless programs occupy 15 or 20 percent of the total programming time. The rest is trash. Don't waste time: be thoughtful of what there is to see and think about," he advised.

Books are still important, stressed Sandburg. "Books can suit our mood," he told his DePauw audience. "We can skip what is stupid and mark the passages we want to read over and over in books we love."

Carl Sandburg won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection Corn Huskers. He was awarded the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for History for Abraham Lincoln: The War Years, and received a second Pulitzer for Poetry in 1951 for Complete Poems.