McCrae's fallen soldiers rise from beneath the poppies, demanding action: keep fighting, carry the torch, don’t let us be forgotten. Sandburg's grass, on the other hand, emerges above the bodies and presents a different perspective: the quiet, patient work of erasure. One poem implores, *remember us*. The other insists, *nobody will remember, and that’s okay, because that’s my purpose*.
This tension — memory as a moral obligation versus forgetting as an inevitable reality — is precisely why these two poems deserve to be examined together.
The Reader's Atlas · Compare · War's Witnesses
GrassIn Flanders Fields
Put Carl Sandburg's "Grass" (1918) alongside John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" (1915) and you’ll find two poems that share similar elements — a battlefield, a flower, a piece of European earth — yet reach nearly opposite conclusions about what the living owe the dead.
Poets
Carl Sandburg / John McCrae
Years
1918
Chapter
War's Witnesses
§01 The thesis
Grass & In Flanders Fields
A reader's case for putting these two side by side — what each carries, and what they argue when they sit on the same page.
§02 The dialectic axes
The two poems on four axes
Each axis isolates one specific vector — speaker, form, image, closing move — and reads the two poems against each other on that single dimension.
Axis
Poem A
Grass
Carl Sandburg
Poem B
In Flanders Fields
John McCrae
01Speaker
Poem A · Grass
In "Grass," the speaker is the grass itself — a collective, elemental force that lacks a name, grief, or any connection to human memory. It uses the first person but comes across more as a law of nature than as a character.
Poem B · In Flanders Fields
In "In Flanders Fields," the speakers are the fallen soldiers—recently dead but still aware of the world above them. Their voice is urgent and personal, reflecting the weight of lives left unfinished.
02Form
Poem A · Grass
Sandburg employs a straightforward free verse style—lacking rhyme, using minimal punctuation, and adopting a structure that reflects the grass's inherent indifference. The poem comes across as a declaration of fact rather than a heartfelt appeal.
Poem B · In Flanders Fields
McCrae employs the rondeau, a French poetic form that features a recurring refrain. The repeated phrase "In Flanders fields" is woven into the poem's structure, allowing it to embody the act of remembrance.
03Central image
Poem A · Grass
The grass serves as both the image and the speaker. It blankets everything—bodies, battles, entire centuries—without any bias or ceremony. Its power grows as it absorbs the history of the battles it encompasses.
Poem B · In Flanders Fields
The poppies in Flanders fields bloom among the crosses marking the graves, a striking reminder of life enduring even in death. The larks continue to sing overhead. Nature in McCrae doesn't erase the past — it bears witness.
04Closing move
Poem A · Grass
"Grass" concludes with a question directed at unknown train passengers who have lost track of their whereabouts. It depicts a profound yet subtle devastation — forgetting depicted as an inevitable reality rather than a failure.
Poem B · In Flanders Fields
"In Flanders Fields" concludes with a haunting warning: if the living do not uphold the legacy, the dead will remain restless. This moral imperative has led to the poem's final lines being recited at memorials for more than a hundred years.
§03 Synthesis & departure
The shared ground and the divergence
Shared
Both poems are brief, both focus on war, and both feature a plant as their central symbol. This choice is significant. In the early 1900s, using a natural image to reflect on large-scale slaughter offered a way to connect with something more ancient and stable than the war itself. McCrae's poppies and Sandburg's grass grow in soil disturbed by conflict. Each poem references specific battles — McCrae points to Flanders, while Sandburg mentions Austerlitz, Waterloo, Gettysburg, Ypres, and Verdun — grounding the universal in a historical context. They both employ straightforward, accessible language without obscure references. Published during or right after World War One, they quickly entered the public's awareness. Additionally, both utilize a non-human voice or perspective to convey insights about human mortality that a human speaker might struggle to express without sentimentality.
Where they diverge
The divergence begins with the speaker. In "In Flanders Fields," the dead soldiers themselves are the ones speaking—they have voices, desires, and unfinished business. They notice the larks, feel the short days, and directly demand something from the living. The poem presents an argument. In "Grass," the speaker is the grass: impersonal, unkillable, and completely indifferent to human interpretations. It does not mourn. It does not demand. It simply exists.
The formal choices emphasize this contrast. McCrae employs a strict rondeau structure with a repeating refrain—the repetition itself mirrors the act of remembrance, reflecting how we revisit the same grief. Sandburg opts for free verse with no punctuation beyond a colon, lacking rhyme, and a structure that feels almost like a shrug. The grass's final question—asking train passengers where they are—is particularly haunting because it expects no response. McCrae's poem concludes with a warning, while Sandburg's ends with emptiness. One serves as a call to arms, while the other offers a lesson in impermanence.
§04 A reader's order of operations
Which to read first
If you arrived at this page via "In Flanders Fields," check out "Grass" next. McCrae's poem reveals the true costs of war and your responsibilities, while Sandburg's piece raises questions about the consequences when that debt is forgotten over time. Together, these poems present a complete discussion — McCrae advocates for remembering, and Sandburg provides the opposing view. If "Grass" left you feeling disturbed by its starkness, "In Flanders Fields" will offer the human warmth that Sandburg intentionally kept at bay.
§05 Reader's questions
On Grass vs In Flanders Fields, frequently asked
Answer
Yes, often. They are commonly studied together in high school and university courses focused on World War One literature because they embody contrasting views on war memory while using similar imagery. This pairing enhances the impact of both poems.
Answer
"In Flanders Fields" was the first of the two poems, written by McCrae in May 1915 following the Second Battle of Ypres. Sandburg published "Grass" in 1918, the war's final year, as part of his collection *Cornhuskers*.
Answer
From McCrae, it starts with: "In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row." From Sandburg, it’s the grass’s stark order: "Pile the bodies high" — the line that begins the poem and establishes its haunting mood.
Answer
Both. McCrae was a Canadian doctor who worked as a military physician during World War One. He penned "In Flanders Fields" after overseeing the burial of a close friend who died at Ypres. He passed away from pneumonia in 1918, while still serving.
Answer
The list — Austerlitz, Waterloo, Gettysburg, Ypres, Verdun — crosses various centuries and continents, illustrating that no war is unique to the grass; it has witnessed them all. This collection transforms a brief poem into a sweeping perspective on history.
Answer
It can be interpreted in two ways. The poem urges the living to continue the fight, which some see as jingoistic, while others view it as a natural expression from soldiers who want their sacrifices to matter. This debate has been ongoing since 1915.
Answer
Largely due to McCrae's poem, poppies sprang up on the disturbed soil of the Western Front battlefields. After "In Flanders Fields" gained fame, the red poppy became the official symbol of remembrance in Commonwealth countries, and this tradition still holds strong today.
§06 More from this chapter
From the charge to the trench
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