I Am the People, the Mob

“I Am the People, the Mob,” is written in free verse—a popular form among American Modernists in the 1910s and 20s. Free verse is unique among poetic forms because of its lack of obvious formal constraints or structures, but that does not mean it is disorganized. Often, free verse poets organize their works using idiosyncratic principles for the purpose of heightening poetic effect.

Sandburg achieves a sense of organization through the way he structures each line of the “I Am the People” as if it were a small, individual piece of prose. Though many of the lines contain more than one sentence, they seem to be structured using similar grammatical principles to individual prose sentences, and work to express a single thought or image through declarative statements. This kind of free verse poetry is similar to some works of Walt Whitman, which are organized in a comparable way. The separation of these ideas into verse lines is the main element that distinguishes this kind of free verse from prose or prose poetry.

The expressive freedom free verse allows—as it is not constrained by external formal rules—heightens the content of Sandburg’s poem. The people, through the speaker’s use of free verse, demonstrate a desire to be removed from rigid structures that limit their ability to express themselves.