I truly want to understand what you wrote.
Are good poems those that rhyme? What kind of quality should poems have to be considered good? Essentially these are questions that Walt Whitman attempts to answer in his preface to “Leaves of Grass”. Whitman in his prologue highlights the unity and plainness of life and people and at the same time he gives a lecture to other poets about the main aim of poems and how they should be written so they can be easily understood by everyone. “The poetic quality is not marshaled in rhyme or abstract addresses to things nor in melancholy complaints or good precepts, but is the life of these and much else and is in the soul” (Whitman 10).
I think that in the above-mentioned passage, Whitman maintained that a poet's style should be simple and natural, without traditional meter or rhyme in order to be fully meaningful. He encourages poets to use free verse and use plain language instead of rhymes. Furthermore, Whitman cautions poets that, “the fluency and ornaments of the finest poems or music or orations or recitations are not independent but dependent [therefore, he thinks that a person] who troubles himself about his ornaments or fluency is [entirely] lost” (Whitman 10).
There is a way poetry should be written in order to be well understood and meaningful. Take the “Sonnet” written anonymously in November 1857 where the author instead of giving the lecture how to write poetry, he illustrate is by example. He uses the seasons in order to express his thoughts and help others to understand him. “To be in tune with what the robins sing, plastering new log-huts ‘mid her branches gray; But when the Autumn southward turns away, then in her veins burns most the blood of Spring, and every leaf, intensely blossoming…the Maple put her corals on in May.” (Sonnet 120) I am assuming that the author in this passage talks about how our lives depend on the nature and how deeply we are attached to it if we want to or not. He says that we, human beings, like the nature fall asleep in order to rest and regain strength before a difficult time.
As long as I can remember any type of poems, sonnets and other forms of English literature were, are and will be very hard to understand and interpret. Back in high school I realized that I am unable to read between the lines. I always interpreted literature in a wrong way. For instance, Whitman’s preface of “Leaves of Grass” talks about diversity of geography, culture, work, sexuality, and beliefs. Whitman mostly emphasizes American dreams of independence, freedom, and fulfillment, and transforms them for larger spiritual meaning. Overall, he values the importance of hard work within an individual performance and recognizes the necessity of being humble towards others.
