With a partner, consider the following questions Is poetry important? Why or why not?

? Why might it have been important in the past? If you do not think poetry is still important, what do you think has replaced it in modern culture?

Old Gray Beard

a.k.a. Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman
Whitman may have changed the course of poetry more than any other single person. Almost single handedly, he invented free verse, the poetry of no rhythm and rhyme that had dominated the last century.

Whitman
Walt Whitman was born in 1819, about half way between the American Revolution and the American Civil War. By 1855, when Whitman published his first edition of poetry, America had changed dramatically. Whitman is the first poet that seemed to speak for all of the new United States.

A Growing America
In 1783, the new country was a group of 13 new states clustered along the Atlantic coastline. By 1855, America had grown to 30 states that stretched across the continent and was rapidly moving toward industrialization and urbanization. It was a diverse country with people coming in from all over the world.

Diversity
It was Americas diversity that fascinated Whitman. He saw America as the greatest nation that ever was, and it was great because it was a melting pot of skilled, hard-working people.

What is a melting pot?

The Young Walt Whitman

Before becoming a poet, Whitman held a variety of jobs and lived a vagabond lifestyle. He was very poor as a child and started having odd jobs as a teenager and young man. He was a carpenter, a printer, a journalist, and even was a schoolteacher at age 17 (shows how low he was getting).

He was an odd duck

His mother described him as very good, but very strange.

His brother described him as being stubborner than a load of bricks.

Interested in Everything
Whitman was interested in ancient Egypt. He loved the sea-And opera. He was fascinated by astrology and phrenology. The sights and sounds of everything around him fascinated him. He was interested in politics, and he delighted in the power of words to express ones ideas.

The Poet
When he turned to writing poetry, Whitman had already lived a fuller life than many people live in a lifetime. But his poetry was differentvery different He saw poetry as organicgrowing naturally like flowers and other plants grow. He invented what is now called Free Verse poetry that has no rhythm or rhyme.

Phrenology?
July 16, 1849. Whitman visits the busy phrenological emporium of Fowler and Wells to literally have his head examined. A nineteenth-century science that has long been discredited, phrenology sought to identify traits of character by the bumps and depressions on a human skull.

 Whitmans analysis pleased him so much that he reprinted parts of it in several editions of Leaves of Grass: This man has a grand physical construction. He is undoubtedly descended from the soundest and hardiest stock. Size of head large. Leading traits of character appear to be Friendship, Sympathy, and Self-Esteem, and markedly among his combinations the dangerous faults of Indolence, a tendency to the pleasure of Voluptuousness, and a certain reckless swing of animal will, too unmindful, probably, of the conviction of others.

A Little Unusual
Until Whitman, poetry had always had rhythm and rhyme. Most people who saw his poetry found it too weird, and many would not even consider it poetry. Whitman needed a boosta way of getting his work recognized.

Leaves of Grass
His first book of poems was entitled Leaves of Grass. (1855) Whitman paid for it entirely by himself because, like Dickinsons poems, publishers thought they were too odd to take a costly chance on. As a former printer, he saved more money by doing the typesetting. He sent a free copy to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Support from an unusual source

Emerson was considered Americas greatest thinker and was an unlikely person to back Whitmans new style of poetry. Yet Emerson was entranced by the poems and responded with a five-page reply. It became the most famous piece of literary sponsorship in American history. Emersons support then caused others to rethink and revisit Whitmans poems.

Emersons reply included the following lines: I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere for such a start.
Emerson probably didnt care much about knowing about Whitmans long foreground, but he was right in assuming Whitman had lived a full and diverse life.

Shameless?
Walt Whitman was perhaps a shameless selfpromoter. He took excerpts from Emersons private letter of endorsement and published them on his book.

Free Verse
Free verse is Whitman's expression of the democratic concepts of a growing America. "What we call poems." he wrote, "are merely pictures." The "real poems," he insisted, "are the men and women in all the variety of human experience."

Leaves of Grass (again and again and again)

Nine times, he republished Leaves of Grass. Nine times, it grew larger with the addition of more poems. In many ways, as he put it, "The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem." The volumes are a tribute to the country and to its people, especially the common working people.

The Civil War

In December of 1862, Whitman was first exposed to the tragedy of The Civil War when he traveled to Virginia in search of his brother George who had been wounded in battle. Whitman spent several days at camp hospitals of the Army of the Potomac just after the particularly bloody Battle of Fredericksburg.

 He was so moved by the scene at the battlefield hospital that he traveled to Washington, D.C, and spent much of the next three years working occasionally as an unofficial nurse in several army hospitals. Whitman made a great effort to get to know wounded soldiers, bringing them small gifts and writing letters for them

Sex
Now that I have your attention: Whitman, incidentally, virtually invented sexuality as a subject of American literature (even though Europeans had discovered it centuries earlier). After Whitman, sex became an acceptable subject in American literature.

Abraham Lincoln
Whitman was also a great admirer of Lincoln. Lincoln's death evoked a strong response in Whitman who wrote several poems about Lincolns death. "O Captain, My Captain" is perhaps the best known. "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," is also a well-known Lincoln memorial.

The American Chorus

In the following poem, I Hear America Singing, Whitman envisions America as a giant chorus. Each person is like a soprano, an alto, and tenor, or a bass who is harmonizing their voice into the giant American song.

I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear;

Those of mechanics--each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work; The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boatthe deckhand singing on the steamboat deck; The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench--the hatter singing as he stands;

The wood-cutter's song--the ploughboy's, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown; The delicious singing of the mother--or of the young wife at workor of the girl sewing or washing Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else; The day what belongs to the day--At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly, Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

Question
How does the poem I Hear America Singing reflect Whitmans attitude towards America? In answering this question, please use evidence (quotes) from the poem. You may also reference facts about his life from todays notes.