There's something almost adolescent about Whitman's paean to everything that was and remains good about America.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The adolescent protagonist is one of the hallmarks of American literature.
I think Whitman more than any other poet possessed the gift of revealing to others the beauty of everything around us, the beauty of nature, the beauty of human beings.
Some of his own closeness to nature, his great love for human beings, was passed on by Whitman to all of us who knew and loved him.
I gotta say - if I clicked on a movie interview, and the first part was all about Walt Whitman, I'd love that article.
From reading a previous answer, you know that I consider all those aspects to be part of American cultural myth and thus they figure into good American poetry, whether the poet is aware of what he is doing or not.
American poets celebrate their bodies, very specifically, as Whitman did.
I always knew in my heart Walt Whitman's mind to be more like my own than any other man's living. As he is a very great scoundrel this is not a pleasant confession.
A lot of young poets today, from what I've heard and experienced, can't get their heads past George W. Bush, and I've heard so many poems about this democracy and this era of politics that I'm kind of bored by it.
American poetry to me is a sort of relentless, nonstop sermon on human autonomy.
It's a big statement if you use the word 'America' in the title of your poem.
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