Walt Whitman

[Nemo Neem]

Whitman is, in my opinion, America's most-controversial poet, but I absolutely love his work. As I read it, the scenes and metaphors are so clear; he reminds me of a travel minstrel with a banjo going from town to town to sing his songs. However, when I read his poetry, I can't help but notice some odd things.

1. Total absence of rhyme. Rhyme can get annoying, but I think Whitman's absence of rhyme makes his poetry surreal, almost dreamlike.

2. Sexual connotations. Many of his poems seem perverted, but I do notice a Shakespearean influence. Many believe that he was gay, and this is evidenced in his poem, "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing."

3. Odd sentence structure, sort of like the Modernists.

4. His use of Lincoln as a metaphor.

He is still an awesome poet. A little odd, but very important to the American literary canon.

[Dipen Guha]

About Whitman Ezra Pound says, " From this side of the Atlantic I am for the first time able to read Whitman and form the vantage of my education and if it be permitted a man of my same years-my world citizenship I see him America's poet". He feels that Whitman is America. Despite his crudity, his ruggedness, he is typically American. Under the cover of the nauseating pill, he perfectly fulfils his mission. "like Dante he wrote in the Vulgar tongue in a new metric, the first great man to write in the language of his people".