Leaves of Grass (Walt Whitman) Book Review

2016 Reading Challenge

51. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman 
      Topic/Theme: book of poetry

Synopsis:

Leaves of Grass collects dozens of poems that Whitman continuously revised over the last years of his life. As a whole, they explores themes of love, nature, spiritualism, and the soul, declaring that the body is one and the same as the soul.

My Review:

First off, I'm not someone who reads poetry that much. Throughout Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman wrote his poetry in free verse and used a lot of metaphors. He pretty much wrote about anything and everything, from his love of nature to his views on faith (well, what he believed in) and so much more. The book is categorized into each of his themes. Poetry, to me, is like life: there are parts you like and parts you don't. Or in the case of this book, there were some poems that I enjoyed and some that I did not.

I was only really familiar with the poem, O, Captain, My Captain, before reading this. If you don't know, it was written about the death of President Abraham Lincoln. In this poem, the captain refers to Lincoln's assassination. The ship represents the war-weathered nation after the Civil War. And the "prize won" was meant to capture America's confusion after the Civil War ended.

Another popular and famous poem is Song of Myself. It's a lengthy poem. Parts of it is featured in John Green's Paper Towns. 

Here is the Walt Whitman Bridge in Philadelphia, PA:

Happy Reading and Keep on Writing!

❤Meg❤