Carl Sandburg

Blizzard Notes

Blizzard Notes - meaning Summary

Storm as Musical Hunger

The poem personifies a blizzard as a set of hungry drums and howling spears, turning wind and weather into musical, hungry forces. The narrator accepts these elemental sounds and then shifts to a calmer image: southwestern lullabies winning a brief respite and a "cradle moon" appearing through a torn sky. Overall it frames violent weather as both appetite and a momentary passage to tenderness and nightly renewal.

Read Complete Analyses

I DON'T blame the kettle drums-they are hungry. And the snare drums-I know what they want-they are empty too. And the harring booming bass drums-they are hungriest of all.. . . The howling spears of the Northwest die down. The lullabies of the Southwest get a chance, a mother song. A cradle moon rides out of a torn hole in the ragbag top of the sky.

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