Joliet
Joliet - meaning Summary
Industry and Ancient Nature
Sandburg places industrial structures and a penitentiary alongside an ancient river valley to show how human activity and natural history coexist and conflict. The poem contrasts recent canals and trains with a river shaped by glaciers long ago, using compact images of sunlit water and geological violence to compress deep time and contemporary industry into a single landscape. It registers both human design and elemental forces without resolving their tension.
Read Complete AnalysesON the one hand the steel works. On the other hand the penitentiary. Sante Fe trains and Alton trains Between smokestacks on the west And gray walls on the east. And Lockport down the river. Part of the valley is God's. And part is man's. The river course laid out A thousand years ago. The canals ten years back. The sun on two canals and one river Makes three stripes of silver Or copper and gold Or shattered sunflower leaves. Talons of an iceberg Scraped out this valley. Claws of an avalanche loosed here.
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