Examining Walt Whitman's Work and Criticism

Three Notable Poems

Through the duration of Whitman’s long, well-lived life, he wrote over three-hundred poems. Out of this expansive cumulation of deeply personal, sensual poetry, I chose three poems to familiarize myself with. The first, “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” is a powerful, emotional poem that reads like a short story. A boy, presumably Whitman himself, narrates a story of personal awakening as he hears the longing cries of a bird without his mate, cries of distress, of pure heartbreak, and the boy feels his own songs stirring within him. Unique to many other poems, this one was written with a certain storytelling craft, with pacing, detail and convincing emotion which gripped me within the first two lines. It is normally quite hard for me to empathize with poetry, but as I read this, I could feel the boy’s development, and felt that I, too, had grown from the experience. The second poem I chose is titled “Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand,” addressed to the audience as a sort of introduction to himself and his poetry. Whitman’s tone, when describing himself, has an air of knowing indifference, yet he warns his audience of the effects he’d certainly have on them. I chose the poem because the second-person perspective and the masterful switches from the light-hearted teasing to whispering of secrets makes it seem like Whitman is confiding in the audience as a friend, but somehow, by the end there are still plenty of questions left unanswered. “I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing” is my final choice poem, in which Whitman contemplates the loneliness of an oak tree he sees growing without any tree companions. He admires the tree’s strength for “uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near” (12), as he knows he could not. I chose this one because I agree with him; I couldn’t live happily without those I love around me. As one of his shorter, more wholesome poems, “I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing” made me happy when I read it. Out of Whitman's plethora of famous, beautifully written pieces, it was most definitely hard to choose three favorites. “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” “Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand,” and “I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing” all display different sides of Whitman, each of which interests me greatly.

Connections Between Whitman’s Life and Work

Whitman, having lived an eventful life to the ripe old age of seventy-three, wrote over three hundred poems and multiple novels. Most of his works tend to be very personal, and can be traced back to events in his life which likely inspired them. To illustrate, a large part of Whitman’s life was his relationship with his parents. They had grown up poor, working on their family farm, so not one Whitman child ever got a substantial education. Whitman’s father never supported his interest in writing as a child, often ridiculing the time he spent reading rather than working on the farm. The few but out-stranding mentions of fatherly figures in Whitman’s works are all paired with descriptors such as “manly, mean, angered, unjust” in his 1855 poem “There Was a Child Went Forth” (23). It was at this time, as well, that he began signing his work as “Walt” rather than his father’s name “Walter.” Another instance of Whitman’s art imitating his life is the recurring mention of a beach on Long Island, referred to by its native name, the Paumanok, where he lived for the first memorable years of his life. The beach seems to have been an important place for Whitman, as he moved from Brooklyn back to Long Island by himself when he was just fourteen years old. Many of his poems are set on the Paumanok beach, namely “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” and “Starting From Paumanok,” both of which focus on a younger self. He likely credits the Paumanok to his poetic awakening, as “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” tells the story of a young boy who finds his destiny one night on the Paumanok. One last connection between Whitman’s life and his work can be seen in his 1865 collection Drum-Taps, in which he documented his time volunteering as a nurse during the Civil War through poetry. In 1862, Whitman’s younger brother George was wounded during the Battle of Fredericksburg, so Whitman visited him at the Union Army Camp. He was recruited from there to transport wounded soldiers, and decided to stay and nurse for the rest of the war. His poem “Beat! Beat! Drums!” brings awareness to the sense of death and suffering which hung over American citizens throughout the war, like drums whose beat would “make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses” (20). These and many other deeply personal pieces of his were likely inspired by the events in his life which he found the most significant, which goes to show that poetry often reveals more about the author than one might suspect.

Analysis of “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”

Whitman, widely known as the father of free-verse poetry, wrote a great many of what are still considered some of the most famous poems today. His 1860 poem “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” is one of his more literary works, in which a man relates a memory of his artistic awakening as a boy. Set in Paumanok, a beach near his childhood home in Long Island, New York, the young boy watches as a bird cries out in desperation for his mate who failed to return to the nest one night. The boy, so moved by these cries, experiences an epiphany about death, which “[arouses] the fire, the sweet hell within… the destiny of [the boy]” (156-157). The title itself, “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” symbolizes the moment of maturity, the moment in which one realizes the fact of mortality, and thus his destiny. Though the boy is never named, there is a very strong connection between the boy and Whitman himself. As a child, Whitman had a strong interest in the literary arts. But, as a poorly educated carpenter, Whitman’s father ignored his natural talent, ridiculed him. Only after his father died in 1855 did Whitman first publish his poetry, when he felt he was liberated, that he could finally begin his destiny as a poet. The poem displays an intimate, emotional moment, which is only intensified by the skillful use of certain literary devices, such as repetition, personification, and musical motifs, among many others. To illustrate, one of the unique characteristics of “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” are the long sections of song-like verse in which the male bird is crying out for his lost mate. The bird sings with an operatic, echoed tone, “O past! O happy life! O songs of joy! In the air, in the woods, over fields, loved! loved! loved! loved! Loved! But my mate no more, no more with me! We two together no more” (125-129). The bird’s song is so captivating that the boy is brought to tears; the longing and desperation bird’s song shows the boy the meaning of mortality. Whitman later personifies the quiet swishing of sea into a voice which “[lisps] to [the boy] the low and delicious word death” (168). Then, the repetition of “death, death, death, death, hissing melodious” (169),as if hypnosis, carries across to the audience the boy’s discovery of mortality, and the secret beauty of it: the revelation of his meaning. These literary devices are necessary in emphasizing Whitman’s core belief, the theme behind this poem: only when one finally realizes the meaning of death can one mature into the person one is meant to be.

In Response to a Critical Essay

By the time his third rendition of Leaves of Grass was published in 1860, Whitman was very well-known for his sensual language, and often criticized for it. In fact, critics during his time would continue to label some of his poems as obscene, reckless, and indecent after each edition of Leaves of Grass. In a 1988 study, essayist Donna Moder decided to psychoanalyze the ever-present sexuality in a number of Whitman’s works. Moder asserts that “the implications of creativity as sexual metaphor for Whitman are manifold and diverse,” as proven by the fact that, among other psycho-emotional ambiguities, “Whitman suffered from a confused sense of identity that manifests itself ritualistically in his writing,” which is traceable to the “childhood home environment of emotional deprivation” that led to a “need for reassurance of contact” (Moder 1). This subconscious want for contact, Moder continues, exhibits itself in Whitman’s poems, sometimes as awkwardly-placed erotic descriptions and themes in his poems. To illustrate this point, in his 1855 poem “Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand,” Whitman introduces himself as an enigmatic, omniscient being, warning the reader of the uncertainty of becoming his “follower.” He goes on to describe the closeness of the relationship between his reader and himself: “Put your lips upon mine I permit you, with the comrade’s long-dwelling kiss or the new husband’s kiss… thrusting me beneath your clothing, where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon your hip” (Whitman 19-23). Further, the significance of touch is revealed in Whitman’s poem “A Woman Waits for Me,” in which he describes a hyper-masculine version of himself, an identity that directly contradicts those softer, more vulnerable identities displayed in most of his poems. Whitman’s explicit descriptions of sexual activity also contradict his usual persona: “A woman waits for me—she contains all, nothing is lacking, yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking” (Whitman 1-2). While not overly sexual, the importance of touch and the uncertainty of himself in both of these poems and quite a few of his other pieces raise questions to the effects of his divergent relationship with his parents. They do, however, support Moder’s reasoning behind Whitman’s use of shocking sensual language in his works.

Original Poem and Explanation

“I Saw Once Two Hummingbirds Flitting”

By Lauren Male

I saw once two hummingbirds flitting,

Round and round and round each other they went,

Never seeming to tire, nor ever looking away from the other,

And they two, beautiful, youthful, energetic, reminded me of us,

When we two would play in the sand,

But I wonder’d if they would end like we did;

I wonder’d if the one with the yellow feathers glistening in the sun would die;

I wonder’d if the one with the dull, brown feathers would live without the other,

Left alone to be reminded of her at the sight of two hummingbirds flitting.

Whitman, being known for his free-verse poetry, doesn’t consistently follow many rules when he writes. Almost all of his poems are titled by the first line of the poem and are written in free-verse, like his poem “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” which I made sure to demonstrate in my poem. Additionally, most of Whitman’s poems are written from the first person point of view, whether or not the persona of the poem is actually Whitman. My poem is written from the first person, though I am not the narrator. I wrote this poem to be vaguely reminiscent of his piece “I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing,” in which the persona is reminded of himself by a piece of nature (the oak tree), and compares that piece of nature to himself. In my poem, at the sight of the “two, beautiful, youthful, energetic” hummingbirds (4), the narrator is reminded of his childhood friend who passed away. Whitman also tended to use punctuation at the end of every line (most commonly he used commas) so I made sure each line of my poem ended with a comma or semicolon until the last line, where the period signifies the end of the poem. Finally, a good number of Whitman’s poems have a somewhat circular ending, in the way that “Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand” both starts and ends with Whitman’s implications that the reader is not equipped to know his secret. For this reason, the poem refers back to the “sight of two hummingbirds flitting” at the end (9). Therefore, my poem can be compared to one of Whitman’s works in multiple areas, namely the form, title, punctuation, the personal theme, and the circular ending.

Works Cited

Dynes, Wayne R. "Walt Whitman: Overview." Gale Literature Resource Center, go.gale.com/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T001&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm¤tPosition=4&docId=GALE%7CH1420008597&docType=Biography%2C+Critical+essay&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=MISCLIT&prodId=LitRC&contentSet=GALE%7CH1420008597&searchId=R4&userGroupName=kennetths&inPS=true&ps=1&cp=4.

Moder, Donna. "Gender Bipolarity and the Metaphorical Dimensions of Creativity in Walt Whitman's Poetry: A Psychobiographical Study."Gale Literature Resource Center, go.gale.com/ps/retrieve.do?tabID=T001&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchResultsType=SingleTab&searchType=AdvancedSearchForm¤tPosition=3&docId=GALE%7CH1420124596&docType=Critical+essay&sort=Relevance&contentSegment=MISCLIT&prodId=LitRC&contentSet=GALE%7CH1420124596&searchId=R10&userGroupName=kennetths&inPS=true&ps=1&cp=3.

"Whitman's Drum-Taps in a Time of War." Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, poets.org/text/whitmans-drum-taps-time-war.

Whitman, Walt. "A Woman Waits for Me."Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, poets.org/poem/woman-waits-me.

Whitman, Walt. "Beat! Beat! Drums!" Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45469/beat-beat-drums.

Whitman, Walt. "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing." Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45471/i-saw-in-louisiana-a-live-oak-growing.

Whitman, Walt. "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking." Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48858/out-of-the-cradle-endlessly-rocking.

Whitman, Walt. "There Was a Child Went Forth." Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, poets.org/poem/there-was-child-went-forth-every-day.

Whitman, Walt. "Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand." Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49204/whoever-you-are-holding-me-now-in-hand.