Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- Why does Sandburg write his poem in the voice of the grass? What's the effect of using this particular (and peculiar) perspective?
- Do you need to understand military history to understand the poem? Or does the poem still resonate, even if you don't know all the details about the battles of Gettysburg and Verdun? Why do you think so?
- What is the effect of all of the repetition in the poem? Why does Sandburg repeat words and phrases so often in such a short poem?
- Does the poem take a stand on the work of the grass? Is it a good thing that the grass has erased the battlefields' history from the landscape? Or is it a problem that nature has obscured the past?
- "Grass" was published in 1918. How do you think the poem might be different if it accounted for other wars in the future? Is "Grass" particular to its time? Or do you think that the poem is still relevant today, even if the ways we fight wars have changed so much in the past 100 years? Why or why not?