Walt Whitman’s poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” gives a light euphonious feel and reveals all the passion Whitman receives from being in such a grand city overflowing with expectations. The third part of the poem talks about the unity of the people of New York, how they all experience the same experiences. The piece is filled with a lot of positive words that impact the view of the person reading the poem.
The start of the excerpt from the poem, “It avails not, time nor place” speaks of how neither time nor place can aid in the separation of New Yorkers. This thought is emphasized again with the line, “or ever so many generations hence,” meaning that even if you are from the 1800s or the 2000s or the far, far future, it do not matter because
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The repetition of the phrase makes it stand out more, makes the reader notice how Whitman is saying he is just the same as his audience. Whitman wants his audience, fellow New Yorkers, to know that he has done the same things they have, “feel when you look on the river and sky,” “one of a living crowd,” “refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow.” Whitman is showing his audience that they are all together as one, a united family of strangers that all share one thing: commuting through the fast-paced city, day to …show more content…
Whitman describes the common nature of New Yorkers, calm yet always in a hurry to get someplace. The person “leans on the rail” and looks at his or her surroundings, yet might be planning out their busy day in their head. Whitman points out that New York will always be hurried and always have hurried people in it. The word “numberless” is used here to describe all the ships and boats, but I see it as also hinting at the many people populating New York City. Many people, all moving about their day and crowding the streets of Manhattan, all too busy and focused on something else that they don’t stop to think about their surroundings.
New York City is always known to be quick, quick and with all its inhabitants being too busy to “stop and smell the roses” Whitman does the “smelling” for them. In this poem, Walt Whitman slows everything down and picks at the little things that affected his day: the river, the ships, the people, etc. Whitman writes a long poem describing all his experiences with New York, all he’s done, all he’s seen and says that all the people that have experienced New York share these experiences. With this poem, Whitman unites the people of New York City and shows them what a beautiful city it is that they all breeze by
This poem captures the immigrant experience between the two worlds, leaving the homeland and towards the new world. The poet has deliberately structured the poem in five sections each with a number of stanzas to divide the different stages of the physical voyage. Section one describes the refugees, two briefly deals with their reason for the exodus, three emphasises their former oppression, fourth section is about the healing effect of the voyage and the concluding section deals with the awakening of hope. This restructuring allows the poet to focus on the emotional and physical impact of the journey.
“Patroling Barnegat,” is a poem about Barnegat Bay, New Jersey. This poem fits with Whitman's life because Whitman lived in New Jersey during the last years of his life. The technique of this poem is special because every line rhymes. The rhyming of every line makes the poem flow very nicely. Whitman beautifully describes the waves on the bay. He describes how the sand on the beach flows and moves on the shore. For example in the first line of stanza two, he says, “Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wedding.” This description of the sand really helps you visualize it. This is how Walt Whitman’s poem “Patroling Barnegat” fits with his life and has an interesting
Colson Whitehead explores this grand and complex city in his collection of essays The Colossus of New York. Whitehead writes about essential elements to New York life. His essays depict the city limits and everyday moments such as the morning and the subway, where “it is hard to escape the suspicion that your train just left... and if you had acted differently everything would be better” (“Subway” 49). Other essays are about more once in a while moments such as going to Central Park or the Port Authority. These divisions are subjective to each person. Some people come to New York and “after the long ride and the tiny brutalities... they enter the Port Authority,” but for others the Port Authority is a stop in their daily commute (“The Port Authority” 22).Nonetheless, each moment is a part of everyone’s life at some point. Many people live these moments together, experiencing similar situations. We have all been in the middle of that “where ...
American poetry, unlike other nations’ poetry, is still in the nascent stage because of the absence of a history in comparison to other nations’ poetry humming with matured voices. Nevertheless, in the past century, American poetry has received the recognition it deserves from the creative poetic compositions of Walt Whitman, who has been called “the father of American poetry.” His dynamic style and uncommon content is well exhibited in his famous poem “Song of Myself,” giving a direction to the American writers of posterity. In addition, his distinct use of the line and breath has had a huge impression on the compositions of a number of poets, especially on the works of the present-day poet Allen Ginsberg, whose debatable poem “Howl” reverberates with the traits of Whitman’s poetry. Nevertheless, while the form and content of “Howl” may have been impressed by “Song of Myself,” Ginsberg’s poem expresses a change from Whitman’s use of the line, his first-person recital, and his vision of America. As Whitman’s seamless lines are open-ended, speaking the voice of a universal speaker presenting a positive outlook of America, Ginsberg’s poem, on the contrary, uses long lines that end inward to present the uneasiness and madness that feature the vision of America that Ginsberg exhibits through the voice of a prophetic speaker.
Whitman stresses the fundamental idea of nature in this, his seventh poem: Everything is dependent-no one can be independent from everything. Therefore, we are all essentially one giant organism. A fundamental unity exists in nature, and we are a part of it. Independence is a concept that nobody can truly understand, because everything is interdependent upon one another. The texture of the poem is very helpful in understanding its meaning. Whitman's structural brilliance shines through in this poem, helping the reader grasp the concept that all things are but one.
A cold stare, and a hand on his hip, is how Walt Whitman introduced himself to his readers in 1855. The style of Whitman’s frontispiece was uncommon for its time, a man with a loose collar and a worn hat would have been found more commonly on a farm than adorning a literary scholar in the mid-nineteenth century. Whitman wanted to show that he was no better than anyone who would read his poetry. Whitman conveyed himself to his audience by showing himself as an everyday workingman; his wrinkled shirt shows that he is use to working hard for everything that he has. The stare he gives back to his audience looks as if he is examining the reader the same way they may be examining him or his work.
... who settled on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where we could see packs of books telling the stories and experiences of past immigrants. I felt the rush and the excitement that characterize the city, but I also couldn’t get enough of the multiple cultures in New York. One would spend days and weeks in the “City that Never Sleeps” but still, it would take many more to truly experience every aspect of it or understand how the diverse ethnicities were able to survive and succeed there.
(A critique of Walt Whitman’s themes and ideas in Song of Myself 6, 46, 47)
"The man [Whitman] knew the world merely as an outside observer, he was never a living part of it, and no mere observer can understand the life about him.
Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" is a vision of the American spirit, a vision of Whitman himself. It is his cry for democracy, giving each of us a voice through his poetry. Each of us has a voice and desires, and this is Whitman's representation of our voices, the voice of America. America, the great melting pot, was founded for freedom and democracy, and this poem is his way of re-instilling these lost American ideals. In this passage from "Song of Myself" Whitman speaks through his fellow man and speaks for his fellow man when his voice is not socially acceptable to be heard.
“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere” (Whitman 33) is Walt Whitman’s first and one of his most popular works, Leaves of Grass. It was and still is very inspirational to many people including Ralph Waldo and many others after him. He had a major influence on modern free verse. Following a hard childhood in and around New York, Walter Whitman was well known and received in his time for Leaves of Grass which did not use the universal theme, which he became known for in the eighteenth century as well as his way of seeing the world in a view that very few could comprehend in his time.
Whitman establishes a direct connection between the lyrical and the reader to get to each one of us. The power that the poem has and having Whitman writing it, rests on the ability of the author to separate himself amongst thousands, almost as a wonderful schizophrenia which allows you to view the world from certain points of view and understand it better than anyone.
There is contrast in Whitman's view, which embraces all society, and that which surrounds him. He views all mankind and nature as intertwined in the past, present and future in one perpetual cycle of life and death. He speaks of the sameness of man and se...
Although Whitman uses a great deal of structural ways to stress his ideas, he also uses many other ways of delivering his ideas. First of all, Whitman portrays himself as a public spokesman of the masses. The tone of the poem is a very loud, informative tone that grabs ones attention. The emphasis placed on the word “all” adds to the characterization of Whitman as a powerful speaker. Furthermore, Whitman takes part in his own poem. Participating in his own poem, Whitman moreover illustrates the connection between everything in life. Lastly, Whitman, most of all, celebrates universal brotherhood and democracy.
Walt Whitman’s writing is often argued about how he exhibits very little style, due to his free form sense of poetry. Though the structure he writes with is unconventional to say the least, he definitely has a sense of style and form that he writes with, and his style isn’t nearly as messy and thoughtless as most pundits would suggest. Whitman’s writing does not have an arrangement that can be easily confined, and give credit that he does not conform to the usual realm of literary style (much like Dickinson). Even though Whitman’s poetry doesn’t follow the conventional poetic protocol, the way other poets like Bradstreet and Longfellow do, it definitely has a certain structure and general themes that he tries incorporating , in spite of it’s sometimes hectic looking technique.