38 pages • 1 hour read
Walt WhitmanA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
“Pioneers, O Pioneers” by Walt Whitman (1865)
Written during the full pitch of the Civil War, the poem represents Whitman at full tilt as the self-anointed America’s Poet. Here the poet celebrates the difficult work of a generation of Americans determined to settle the West, to push past the known and into the vast and uncertain unknown west of the Ohio River. The focus again is on the hard work and endurance of these exemplar Americans who, despite the ongoing war, premised an America rebuilt and stronger than before the war. Much like the blue-collar workers in “I Hear America Singing,” Whitman celebrates the tenacity, determination, and heroic strength of pioneers as the epitome of the American character.
“The People, Yes” by Carl Sandburg (1936)
The Poetry Foundation website contains excerpts of “The People, Yes.” Carl Sandburg happily acknowledged his debt to Whitman and his broad, sweeping affirmation of America. Much as Whitman projected his poem against a nation edging into a civil war, this Sandberg poem, actually a book-length complex of poems, was projected against an America mired in the Great Depression. The celebration of the spirit, energy, moxie, and diligence of the unsung Americans facing the grace challenge of poverty and despair reflects Whitman’s thematic argument, and Sandberg’s deft use of free verse as well acknowledges his admiration for the liberating freedoms of Whitman’s prosody.
By Walt Whitman
A Glimpse
Walt Whitman
America
Walt Whitman
A Noiseless Patient Spider
Walt Whitman
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
Walt Whitman
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
Walt Whitman
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Walt Whitman
For You O Democracy
Walt Whitman
Hours Continuing Long
Walt Whitman
I Sing the Body Electric
Walt Whitman
I Sit and Look Out
Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman
O Captain! My Captain!
Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
Walt Whitman
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
Walt Whitman
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
Walt Whitman
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
Walt Whitman
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