Carl Sandburg

Young Bullfrogs

Young Bullfrogs - context Summary

Published in 1928

Carl Sandburg’s short lyric places a boy, Jimmy Wimbledon, beside Northern Illinois prairie ditches at night and records the overwhelming sound of young bullfrogs. The chorus is both baffling and consoling, described as mathematical, metronomic, and puzzling while also offering a steady, beaten cadence that soothes. The poem compresses a vivid Midwestern soundscape into a single attentive moment of listening.

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Jimmy Wimbleton listened a first week in June. Ditches along prairie roads of Northern Illinois Filled the arch of night with young bullfrog songs. Infinite mathematical metronomic croaks rose and spoke, Rose and sang, rose in a choir of puzzles. They made his head ache with riddles of music. They rested his head with beaten cadence. Jimmy Wimbledon listened.

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