We wont always be important (Poetry reaction 2)

                  Love Letter To Hans Christian Andersen By Carl Sandburg

    Carl Sandburg, choose to title his poem A love Letter To Hans Christian Andersen. If I had read this poem without the title I would never had thought that the title would have the words ‘Love letter’ in it. In the poem Sandburg personifies a knife and a chair having an argument that last a few years until they are discarded. I am questioning who Hans Christian Andersen is though, and how the poem relates to him. Is Sandburg fighting with someone named Andersen. It is possibly that the title is  written in a sarcastic. By writing the poem its possible Sandburg was trying to get a message across that at one point arguments that have been going on for a very long time don't even matter. There isn't anymore to fight about.

    With some research on Hans Christian Andersen I found that he was also a writer. Now it makes some sense that Sandburg is mentioning him, because he is another poet. “Sandburg had read Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales and was familiar with the classic fables, but he had no interest in stuffing European tropes into an American mythology.” Sandburg was writing poetry much like Andersen, but he didn't want to be completely the same. He didn't want anyone to compare himself to Andersen. He wanted to put a twist on his own writing to make it stick out. I think Sandburg wants to draw attention to himself by placing another familiar poet into his title, he wanted everyone to notice that he is different from him. The title is definitely a sarcastic tone.  

Its possible that he has personified  the knife and chair so that he could use them to explain how he felt without mentioning Andersen or his own name. Andersen would be the chair and Sandburg would be the knife. The chair asks the knife why he doesn't have any legs because the chair has legs and in response the knife asks why the chair doesn't have teeth like him. The two items question each other, they basically ask ‘why aren’t you like me?’ or even ‘why don't you have what I have?’ or ‘why don't you do what I do?’  And the arguments go on and on until the two are worn out and can no longer argue about those things.

The items are discarded by their owners, no one wants a chair that has no legs or a knife that is dull. Now neither of the items have anything to argue about, because their key features have been taken away, they have grown old. Much like how Sandburg and Andersen did, they grew old and their quarrels no longer mattered to either of them or to anyone else around them.  Much like everyone else in the world, you will be forgotten when you are no longer interesting or needed or useful. Onced the two items had been placed in the cellar with the other junk like broken tools and old mops, they realized that they no longer mattered to anyone, just like what surrounded them.  They were surrounded by useless stuff, they were useless now. Its easy to tell that the items felt regret, they wished they were still young and new. Except they wasted all that time fighting, when in the long run it wouldn’t matter.

          It seems a little sad to personify items that are no longer in use. Giving them feeling much like humans, of sorrow. They feel useless. They realized they no longer have any use. They will either be recycled or discarded into the trash. At least when it comes to people they are still taken care of when they can no longer work or when they grow old. This poem reminds me of this old movie I watched ‘The Brave Little Toaster’ all the items like the vacuum, toaster, blanket, and lamp were all given real feelings, they missed their owner. They felt depressed when they found themselves in the junkyard.