Poetry Analysis

Walt Whitman
 Literary Devices
 Free Verse: poetry without regular pattern of
rhyme and meter
 Catalog: frequent lists of people, things, and
attributes
 Parallelism: related ideas are phrased in
similar ways
 “Song of Myself”
1. What does grass symbolize in this poem?
2. What is the speaker’s view of himself?
3. What is the speaker’s view of death?
4. What is the speaker’s relationships with the
reader and with others?
5. Identify different literary elements (catalog,
parallelism, and any other devices that you
can find).
 “I Hear America Singing” & “I Sit
and Look Out”
1. What does “singing” represent?
2. Why do you think Whitman does not mention
members from the upper class like politicians or
entrepreneurs?
3. Why do you think Whitman writes about the social
injustices described in the poem? Why does he
respond with silence?
4. Explain the dichotomy of the two poems that
capture the spirit of America in the mid-1800s.
5. Identify different literary elements (catalog,
parallelism, and any other devices that you can
find).
 “I Hear _______ Singing”
 Write your own poem imitating Whitman’s
style (free verse, catalog, and parallelism).
 Base your poem on a location of your choice
and write about the types of people and sounds
that you would hear.