In a Dark Time … The Eye Begins to See

Song of Myself 1 I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air, Born here of [...]

Walt Whitman is very likely America’s greatest poet. Stylistically, he is certainly the most influential, leading the way into the modern age with his emphasis on free verse. He freed poets, whether traditional or not, to write their poetry in the style that best suited their content. More importantly, to me at least, he seems the [...]

“I Hear America Singing” is one of those deceptively simple poems that still manages to manifest Whitman’s poetic power. Of course, if it were written today people would probably merely consider it a Pepsi commercial cliché, it’s that good. I HEAR AMERICA SINGING. I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing [...]

Those of us who are parents or those of us who believe it takes a village to raise a child will find much to consider in Whitman’s “There was a Child went Forth:” THERE was a child went forth every day; And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became; And that object became part of [...]