Walt Whitmen
...1800's.
Walt was arguably one of America's influential and
innovative poets of his time. Whitman began work as a
printer and journalist in the New York City area. He wrote
articles on politics, civics, and the arts. During the
Civil War, Whitman was a volunteer assistant in the military
hospitals in Washington, D.C. After the war, he worked in
several government departments until he suffered a stroke in
1873. He spent the rest of his life in Camden, N.J., where
he continues to write poems and articles. Leaves of Grass,
a book of poems Whitman began in 1848 was so unusual at the
time that no publisher would publish it. In 1855, he
published it himself. Between 1855 and his death, Whitman
published several revised and enlarged editions of his book.
Walt sent a copy of the book to Ralph Waldo Emerson, and
Ralph would send the poet an enthusiastic letter which he
hailed him "at the beginning of a great career"(Whitman
732). Walt believed that Leaves of Grass had grown with his
own intellectual development. Calamus, a section of poems
in Leaves of Grass is a section talking about love and
friendship. Poems in Calamus have been put in and taken out
through the years with the revisions of the book. Two poems
that can be found in Calamus today are "I Saw in Louisiana a
Live-Oak Growing" and "To a Stranger." These two poems have
not been Calamus together since the beginning of the book,
but now they are together and very similar.
Since love and friendship are two major aspects that
Whitman was looking for in life. He wrote many poems on
those topics alone. Calamus is group of poems that explain
love and friendship. "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak
Growing" and "To a Stranger" are two poems that explain his
loneliness and his wanting of a companion. Whitman uses
people and objects to symbolize his thoughts and feelings....
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