How Did Walt Whitman Influence Poetry

Influence by Whitman or Challenged? In the late Victorian period, two poets influenced the next generation of poets. Walt Whitman and Emily Dickson two similar, but very different poets. Both influenced their own string of poets. For example, Emily Dickson influenced Sylvia Plath. They both had different infatuations and a different outlook on life. Walt Whitman exposed religion and his beliefs in his writings. He believed that that everyone should have a relationship with their soul. Whitman also believed that a person should invite his or her soul to a celebration. In Whitman’s “Song of Myself”, he dotes on himself and express his relationship with his soul. In the first section he says, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume

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 parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same”. In this section, Whitman, by celebrating himself, is saying that’s what we all should do. He is also saying I will celebrate for you. He says the reason he acts this way is because he is doing what nature told him to do. This is also how Whitman writes his poetry so natural with no rhyme. Whitman influenced poets, whose writing speaks for themselves, such as Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, and D.H. Lawrence. Carl Sandburg was high influenced by Whitman. They both used the same form and style. For example, in the poem Gargoyle by Sandburg, he uses the same approach about America as Whitman does. He gives America a body. Sandburg also made America seem like a child because it was so young and gullible. The poem we read in class, “Chicago” seem to be like Whitman long lines and free verse style. “Chicago is pictured as this tough city in the poem. The city of the hard workers, the lady dancer, the gang members, and the proud residents of Chicago. Sandburg