Walt Whitman was a contemporary of Poe, Emerson, Longfellow, and Bryant, but his work is quite different from theirs. A pioneer of free verse and non-esoteric subject matter, he is often spoken of as American's first modern poet. I Hear America Singing is a prime example of his focus on working-class democracy using realistic imagery.
Whereas Emerson and Thoreau were Harvard educated, Longfellow a professor at that university, Bryant a lawyer, and Poe a student of the classics and foreign languages, Whitman's education ended in his early teens. His friends were not Transcendentalists, Puritan ministers, or literati but sailors, farmers and fishermen.
His early poetry was considered crude and gross in its subject matter. He proudly referred to his slangy, unrhymed verses as "barbaric yawp." Whittier reportedly took a quick look at an early edition of Leaves of Grass and threw his copy into the fireplace.
Like Emily Dickinson who published only ten poems during her lifetime, Whitman was virtually unknown until after his death even though his work drew admiring comment from Emerson, Thoreau, and Abraham Lincoln.
I Hear America Singing
I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics, each 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 boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day at night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.
This poem demonstrates typical Whitman techniques. Although there is no end rhyme, we hear a sense of melody in his chiming repetitions and a rhythm in the length of his lines that substitutes for the metrical pattern we expect in conventional poetry. Line one announces the main metaphor. Individual Americans doing their various jobs are a harmonious chorus of happy, proud, creative workers.
The speaker hears the "singing" of mechanics, a carpenter, a mason, a boatman, a steamboat deckhand, a shoemaker, a maker of hats, a woodcutter, and a ploughboy. Each tradesman or laborer performs his labor with the same pride and exultation that one might hear from a singer. In democratic America, the speaker seems to say, there is no gradation of importance attached to the jobs performed or the performers of those jobs.
He concludes with mention of female voices. A mother performing her motherly duties is "singing" and the sound of her voice is "delicious." The same goes for "the young wife at work, or . . . the girl sewing or washing." In the last two lines we hear the after-work or off-duty songs of a "party of young fellows, robust, friendly,/ Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs."
Whitman mentions no brilliant artists or corporate executives. The people in his poem are common folk without individual names, but in his celebratory verse they are all idealized. Each one finds joy in the dignity of his or her labor. In eleven lines of verse, the word "singing" appears eleven times, or twelve if you include the title. The word is used figuratively to reflect happy pride in performance of labor.
Free verse is not just prose written with irregular line endings. Although it is "free" of metrical restrictions, it is still patterned and unified by the conventional poetic devices of repetition, assonance, and alliteration. The article "the", ordinarily disregarded, begins seven of the eleven lines and establishes a pattern that is seen on the page and heard when the poem is given voice. Alliteration lends ear-pleasing melody in lines 4 and 5 with the "m's" of mason and makes, and the "b's" of boatman . . . belongs . . . boat. The assonance of "ing" sound in the repetitions of singing, sewing, and washing lend the sense of activity inherent in all present participles.
This is a poem that voices American democracy. Its language is muscular, its pulse vibrant, its mood exultant. We will hear similar tonalities and exuberance in the free verse of Carl Sandburg, who was 14 when Whitman died.