by Neil Deo

Created on: July 16, 2008   Last Updated: September 12, 2008

Walt Whitman was happy to be himself, because our country, America, freed him as a person and as a poet. He was willing to break with conventions (in poetry and in his human needs and sexual preferences) and created a fresh, new poetry for America. Among his notable influences is the Harlem Renaissance writer, Langston Hughes, who pubslihed works with titles eerily similar to some of Whitman's poems.

In "I Hear America Singing," Whitman makes a case for those who have been excluded from high poetry and classical writers, especially from the European continent. He is acknowledging the ordinary hands - see Line 2, in the poem quoted, below - and also celebrates the strong, beautiful bodies that build and rebuild American every day! Some of the pure sensuousness, the direct physicality of these words and images, both shocked and liberated his audiences.

"I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanicseach one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boatthe deckhand singing on the steamboat
deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his benchthe hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter's songthe ploughboy's, on his way in the morning, or at the noon
intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the motheror of the young wife at workor of the girl sewing or
washingEach singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the dayAt night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs."

As the poem, above, demonstrates, Whitman does not seem interested in rhyme or form for the sake of form, and other poetic rules and conventions. Yet, in his ordinary, direct American idiom, he is able to capture something others had not - an authentic American voice. His lines are not typical poetry, and may appear to run like regular sentences, but there is no mistaking the big images and metaphors that Whitman deploys in these new, old arts of poetry and music. In Line 10, he uses "delicious singing" to talk of a mother connecting with her child, long before the word "delicious" became overused and trite in our day. Yet his comparison lives today because he elaborated on this word, and like "the girl sewing or washing," the mother's singing reveals what is special, shared and yet will always "belong to her." This is no one else's voice, or expression, or communication.

The last lines turn from day to night, and if somewhat revealingly, Whitman also enjoys the company of men: "their strong, melodious songs."

In this rather short poem, Whitman achieves a place for ordinary men and women who make America the great nation it is, and great as it can always be, when both sexes are celebrated and acknowledged. It is remarkable that "girls" and "mothers" and "working" females are as dominant in this work as are the carpenters, masons and "young fellows, robust, friendly/ Singing with open mouths."

Whitman gave many otherwise overlooked people, genders and groups not only a melody, but he gave America its own, unique SONG in the world, through poems like "I HEAR AMERICA SINGING." In the process he was able to achieve personal freedom for his own expression and desires.

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