Whitman's Poetry

I have to say, I do really like Whitman’s poetry. Unlike the poetry of Emily Dickinson- who you may review I did not enjoy so much- Whitman is all about connecting. The issue with Whitman that Dickinson does not face is the question of whether of not his poetry is actually poetry.

            Poetry has controlled form. Poetry requires musical language. Poetry is narrative musical art. Poetry is somewhat indefinable, really. I don’t know that I can define it, although I think that poetry is at least recognizable.  Some “poetry” is questionable to me. While Emily Dickinson’s poetry show her great skill with language, it lacks what I believe is the poets innovation; though I did mention in my last blog that her poems were more interesting in her time. She just doesn’t have the poets heart as far as I am concerned. She barely shows me anything I could not have figured out on my own sitting in my own window. Some of what she rights barely even makes sense, especially in a way that is consistent with her style. She write on both a figurative and literal level, but her style is very explicit. Every now and then, she (arbitrarily) throws in a line which works only for rhymes sake or that adds something, but not to the meaning.

            Whitman, on the other hand, writes everything explicitly, with heart, has many layers of meaning, but not so many levels. At least in my humble opinion, that is. Song of myself is all about connection to everything and everything within everything. And how all of those things connect. Just reading the print tells you everything, no guessing involved. He draws the reader in, not only by stating that his atoms belong to the reader (in second person),; He also commands and questions the reader.

            Again the problem is whether or not Whitman is a poet. Well he is definitely a poet, based on the loose meaning of the word. All people have poetry in their souls (I sound like Whitman now…), at least most writers master the language so that they can write somewhat poetically. But are these poems? Maybe not. They feel an awful lot like musings. All of the sections are different lengths; there is no meter, or rhyme scheme. But does poetry need any of these things? No, but it does require some consideration of the music of language. No the issue of whether or not Whitman’s work is poetry is somewhat subjective. I can find the music in this work. The care put into his descriptions show a true love for that which he writes. He uses incredibly descriptive phrasing, in which the sounds of the words fit well with the aesthetic of the meaning. For instance:

“Bearing with Bandages, water and sponge,      Straight and Swift to my wounded I go. (The Wound Dresser 25-26)”

The word choice for the above lines are appropriate in creating the level melancholy suspense which one might experience in entering a hospital ward.

In song of myself, section 26, he says:

“Steep’d amid honey’d morphine, my windpipe throttled in flakes of death,"

This line is in reference to a, what I think, is a requiem for someone violently killed.  The sounds of the words are tough on the reader, with many of the syllables ending in hard consonates, exhausting almost to even read.

Whitman uses repetition, both in the word he begins a sentence with and the construction of the entire sentence.

“I exist as I am, that is enough,         If no other in the world be aware I sit content,             And if each and all be aware I sit content. (Song of Myself 413-415)”

Almost all of the clauses in section 15 begin with “The”; some with “And”. Each “The” grants a higher and higher level of emphasis during the reading of the section.

Slight Rhyme:

 “Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,        Looking with side curved head curious what will come next, (song of myself, 77-78)”        “It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,          It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, (Song of myself, 112-113) 

  I think that both of the poems show a certain mastery of the language and sound. I wonder, if these poems were read aloud, how they would strike a person who didn’t understand English. I think read well the words and the spacing between lines (and the suspense it creates) would have effect

Whether or not either of these two pieces actually constitutes poetry makes very little difference to me, I suppose, because I like them. Whitman probably wouldn’t have cared either way.