Celebrating Halloween with Carl Sandburg

Happy Halloween!

Why do we love Halloween? Maybe it’s the thrill of shadows, the whispered stories of ghosts and goblins, or the sheer joy of transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary with costumes, pumpkins, and flickering candles. Halloween is a night where imagination takes the lead — where even the wind seems to carry secrets.

Tonight, I’m celebrating Halloween with Carl Sandburg, who had a gift for finding poetry in the everyday. His short poem, Theme in Yellow, doesn’t dwell on fright or fear. Instead, he turns to the pumpkin — that bright, round companion of autumn — and gives it a mischievous voice. The jack-o’-lantern smiles with a glow that is equal parts harvest warmth and playful trickery.

Sandburg’s images — yellow balls on the hills, orange and tawny gold in the cornfields, the harvest moon rising — remind us that Halloween isn’t just about spooks and scares. It’s also about autumn’s abundance, the laughter of children, and the community that gathers around the simple magic of light in the dark.

So when you see a pumpkin glowing on a porch tonight, think of Sandburg’s words, and know that you are part of a tradition that stretches across fields, front steps, and generations.

https://youtu.be/f2egByr2m8I?si=kkxQkBXSHufU6YSL

Theme in Yellow

by Carl Sandburg

I spot the hills
With yellow balls in autumn.
I light the prairie cornfields
Orange and tawny gold clusters
And I am called pumpkins.
On the last of October
When dusk is fallen
Children join hands
And circle round me
Singing ghost songs
And love to the harvest moon;
I am a jack-o’-lantern
With terrible teeth
And the children know
I am fooling.

As October draws to a close, I am reminded that Halloween is more than a night of costumes and candy. It is a pause at the threshold between seasons — a moment when the glow of a pumpkin lantern can carry us back to the wonder of childhood and forward into the quiet of November.

Carl Sandburg’s Theme in Yellow shows me that even in the simplest of images — a smiling jack-o’-lantern, a harvest moon — there is both playfulness and grace. This Halloween, I celebrate not only the mysteries of the night, but also the gift of imagination that lets us find light, even in the gathering dark.

Thank you for joining me in celebrating Halloween with Carl Sandburg. Until next time we meet, keep reading and reciting poetry.

Rebecca

Celebrating Halloween with Carl Sandburg – Rebecca's Reading Room

#CarlSandburg #HappyHalloween #PoetryInTheEvening #RebeccaSReadingRoom #ThemeInYellow

In my latest blog post you can read Carl Sandburg’s Halloween-themed poem “Theme in Yellow,” and do a simple vocabulary exercise.

It's a playful, festive, and wonderfully evocative poem - unusually written from the perspective of a pumpkin! If you love this time of year as much as I do, I’m sure you’ll enjoy “Theme in Yellow!”

https://grammaticus.blog/2025/10/29/theme-in-yellow/

#poem #poetry #learningenglish #englishvocabulary #englishteacher #americanliterature #Halloween #carlsandburg

A quotation from Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) American poet, biographer
(Attributed)

More info about this quote: wist.info/sandburg-carl/79972/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #carlsandburg #autonomy #lifespan #lifetime #selfcontrol #selfdirection #time #value #passageoftime #independence

I won't take my religion from any man who never works except with his mouth.
-- Carl Sandburg

⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #CarlSandburg #Religion

⬇ #Photography #Panorama #ChacoCanyon #Petroglyphs #NewMexico