Letters to Dead Imagists

Letters to Dead Imagists - context Summary

Published in 1920 Collection

Published in Sandburg’s 1920 collection Smoke and Steel, "Letters to Dead Imagists" addresses deceased poets directly, attributing distinct images and tonal effects to them. Short epistolary fragments name Emily Dickinson and "Stevie Crane," crediting Dickinson with intimate, animating domestic images and the other with wartime, martial visions. The piece functions as a compact, elegiac nod to predecessors and their memorable imagistic contributions.