SummaryCarl Sandburg (1879–1967) seems to have been and remained totally unaware of Bertolt Brecht while the latter got to know at least some of the former's poems, if only rather belatedly. Nevertheless, there obtains a certain kinship between the two poets, extending from their political stance ‐ Brecht's socialism and Sandburg's populism ‐ right down to the specific, almost unique, mode of musical performance they shared. This similarity manifests itself both thematically and in terms of form and composition; most strikingly, it comes to the fore in what has been labeled their “mid‐poem shift,” i.e. a sudden dramatic turning point which is structural as well as emotional and even ideological (as witness, for example, Sandburg's famous “Chicago” and Brecht's “Verschollener Ruhm der Riese