Connecting with Walt Whitman

So far, we have read the connectedness, nature, and American pride in Walt Whitman's various poetry. Monday, we will continue our Whitman and Dickinson worksheet with a foyer into Emily Dickinson's poetry. You will find that their themes and meanings are very similar even though their unique writing styles are extremely different.

After we read about Whitman's literary devices, we created poems in the style of Whitman. Here is a copy of my poem in homage and style to Whitman's "Song of Myself" (after the jump)

“I celebrate & sing myself”

(a poem inspired by Walt Whitman)

I sing myself in words that fill my life

                Words that share myself with yours

                              that share my heart with yours

                              that share my eyes with your imaginings

But I am ever blind, then see—

                again, again I learn again

                stories

                (and dreams)

                of who I am again.

Somedays I am the scholar, with unquenching thirst for knowledge and numbers

                (blind to feelings or practicality)

Somedays I am the homemaker, with aromas (paprika and pinesol)

                pervasive along with ordered chaos

Yet other days I am the sloth, with chocolate, popcorn, and tactile-glee

                (blind by shutting out the daily pressures on myself)

But most of all, on most of days

                I’m merely just the rolling tide of

                emotion, feeling, empathy, misery

                that I embrace with emerald pools for eyes.

                I share myself with you and take your share of you

                because only in our life together

                (with God & nature and water & things)

                does life mean anything in song

                               

Elizabeth Gay

1.11.2012

910am