Walt Whitman's I Hear America Singing

Decent Essays
I have read poetry before, but it is not my favorite style to read. One of my favorite poems from my past reading would be “I Hear America Singing” by Walt Whitman. I read this poem back years ago and it has stuck with me ever since the first time I read it. My meaning would be how each of us sing a different song as we each live a different life. This poem relates to how each person is different, yet we all have one life to live no matter what profession we choose (Albrecht, 2010). In the last fifteen years, I probably have not read much poetry. My preference of reading materials emerged from the business arena. After reading the poems that last couple of weeks, has intrigued my interest in how different styles create a setting and can have

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    The art of poetry is a vast discipline in which the creations of the poets take on a multitude of different forms. Not only are there a large number of poetic structures that an author can choose from, there are also many parts within those structures that can be modified to lead to an even more diverse array of final products. The author has a great many choice when it comes to choosing the structure of their poem, they can vary the number of lines per stanza, the length of each line, and the number of syllables per line. Other variations the poet can make include content changes such as choosing to use rhyming words, repeated sounds like alliteration, and figurative devices such as personification. Even in poetry forms with strict guidelines,…

    • 1475 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Poems are the hidden reality of the everyday life. Thousands of people do not value the power and potential a poem can have. Poems can actually change the perspective and the way of living for many people. Many find poems to be difficult and extremely confusing. However, they are meant to be closely interpreted and annotated until the deeper meaning is…

    • 627 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I have never before read a book of poetry structured like this. The use of symbols instead of words was new to me. My use here is limited but still it was fun to do. I would have liked to have imitated other characteristics of his style those having to do with content and individual poem structure. He often takes an incident or scene and develops it in a very spare and elemental way but still finds a way to slip in drama, surprises and sometimes even shock and awe.…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Many people don't know what the national anthem is really about. The national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner" was written in the year of 1812. The writer was a lawyer named Francis Scott. During the War of 1812 Francis Scott boarded a ship close to Baltimore, Maryland. Francis was asked by the president James Madison to persuade two officers that were on the ship to let out an American prisoner.…

    • 169 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Questionable Science of Learning Ideas and concepts that many scientists and new age astronomers produce can make a person, tiresome of trying to understand if the listener is determined to learn on his own accord. This forestall can make a mind unaccountable of its learning abilities, making them “tired and sick” (5). In Walter Whitmans, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” the speaker gives an insight to a character who is perplexed trying to learn from a scholarly lecture but soon is accountable of his own learning ability. Within this foundation lies the reality of two different learning experiences making the passive learning experience a cluster of nonsense while the active learning experience is worthy of the stars. The first…

    • 936 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    E pluribus unum—out of many, one. This is the motto of the United States of America, a nation that prides itself with democratic characteristics such as individual rights, community through patriotism, freedom, and equality for all. However, these concepts are just ideals as individualism and community contradict each other as well as freedom and equality, and historically America has had difficulty balancing these ideals. One of Walt Whitman poems preaches the possibility that these concepts can work together. “Song of Myself” is Whitman’s paean to his ideal of American democracy, an idea which balances, or attempts to balance, freedom with equality, individualism with community, a relentlessly inclusive, or as Whitman puts it, “absorptive”…

    • 1385 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    I don’t know a lot of this author, but something I understood from this poem is that he loves America, as well as he loves himself. It really is a long poem, and I had to re-read it because I didn't get too much the first time. I think he believes America is freedom, democracy, happiness, sort of everything. I did some research about the poem and I found something that I think it is important to the background of the poem. From this poem, people can get some beautiful phrases that can apply to our real life.…

    • 132 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The poem is titled “ I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman (1819-1892) this man wrote in his poem about how Americans are hard work and how they have a fulfilling life , that they are happy to work all day or all night and still go out to have fun with the family or with friends This is demonstrated in Walt Whitman when he summarizes it in his poem when he claims “The Mason singing his as he makes ready for work , or leaves off work ( Walt Whitman line 4 ). This is explaining that they like to work day of night they are very hard working and they enjoy what they do . the other ideas based upon the reasoning that at that time where Americans who were hard working and had a fulfilling life Another example of this can be found when walt whitman asserts “ The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam (walt whitman line 5) this example is saying that he enjoys his work and that he is happy with what he does . the sensual idea of this poem was that Americans were hard workers and that they enjoyed it with a life of fulling happiness and enjoyment through their out their life…

    • 813 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The American voice is also characterized by being diverse. Walt Whitman states that we are diverse in the First line of his Poem that says “I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear. this is symbolizing the people who helped build up what is America as we know it today . Therefore this idea is also presented in the whole poem of “ I hear America singing’ in lines 1-7 which states that The mechanic, Carpenter, Mason, The Boatman, shoemaker , and the woodcutter all unite in the body of this nation.…

    • 729 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    (The Evaluation of Walt Whitman’s Pedagogy Through “Song #6, #46, and #47”) When first learning about Walt Whitman, there are many different ideas that come with his name. Some consist of his iconoclastic reputation or maybe his women’s activist side. Also, looking at his poetry many ask questions, Kenneth M. Price asked, “Did Whitman undergo some sort of spiritual illumination that opened the floodgates of a radical new kind of poetry, or was this poetry the result of an original and carefully calculated strategy to blend journalism, oratory, popular music, and other cultural forces into an innovative American voice?” But a very large aspect of Whitman’s name is simply his pedagogy.…

    • 903 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Literature Paper Poetry can be very complex and even though it can vary and use different techniques to get the point across it may come to the same conclusion and meaning, and can also be interpreted differently. Poetry is meant to be understood in the reader's own way. Why I Hate Raisins, Hand-Me-Down Halloween, and My Brother at 3AM are about the struggles of living in the reservation, but use different style, syntax and tone. Why I Hate Raisins is a poem about the struggles of not having enough food or not being able to afford food other than what they received. It is written in subtly and sounds simple, so the true meaning behind the poem is not really understood until the end, and has a deeper meaning.…

    • 1073 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Poetry By Marianne Moore

    • 290 Words
    • 2 Pages

    ''Poetry'' by Marianne Moore was very interesting. For you to understand this poem you have to break it down paragraph by paragraph to truly understand the meaning that's in this. This Poem at first was confusing I had to read it a second time to understand what's going on. The way this poem was set, it was hard to find out the meaning. I think out of all the other poems I think this one was the hardest to crack down, but the best thing out of this poem was when I finally understood it, I was able to see where Moore was going with it.…

    • 290 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Walt Whitman Tone

    • 878 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Equality appeared to be important to Whitman, so the fact that America provided the opportunity for everyone to be equal was something that Whitman showed his respect in the tone of the poem. The second word that contributes to the tone is alike. Whitman was appreciative of the fact that Americans were alike, rather they were “grown, ungrown, young or old,” despite being alike, people still had their qualities that differentiated…

    • 878 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Whitman was viewed as a voice for the individual American and the abolitionist movement helped fuel the idea that enslaved African Americans deserved to be treated as respected individuals. Whitman’s poem “[I celebrate myself, and sing myself ] 1855” (Norton 721) is a good example of his thoughts on individualism. The poem is a celebration of what it means to be an individual. Whitman expresses his pride of being himself but also expresses his delight in knowing that every other person is just as lucky to be themselves. The line “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”…

    • 1359 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Walt Whitman strongly and openly supported the idea that America would thrive under a democracy. For America to thrive under a democratic government all the individuals of America should be equal and should be treated equally. In “Song of Myself,” Whitman shows how America and how being an American would have been affected if all the people of the early settlement supported the idea of America succeeding under a democracy rather fearing that a democratic government would fail. “Song of Myself” does not force the reader to accept democracy, it does not even suggest the reader to accept democracy it just allows the reader to picture America as a democracy. Whitman states in section two “You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, you shall listen to all sides and filter them for yourself.”…

    • 569 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays