Whitman & Dickinson NEW POETIC FORMS

LIFE  Born 1819  Went to school until he was 11; never went to college  Edited Brooklyn Freeman newspaper; also worked as a carpenter and contractor  Sent Leaves of Grass (self published collection of poetry) to Emerson – a good move!  Created a public persona for himself through his poetry (self-promoted)  Died in 1892, having met his personal goal of changing American poetry  Simple speech  Epic design (long, sweeping poems) WALT WHITMAN

POETRY  Rejected conventions  Themes  Forms  Subjects  Used long lines  Capture the rhythm of natural speech (cadence)  Free verse (no rhyming)  Everyday vocabulary  Leaves of Grass (self-published) made him famous  Impact of his work  poets could write about anything  Organization/meter/rhyme didn’t matter WALT WHITMAN

LIFE  Born in 1830  Childhood – normal  Lively, well-behaved, obedient  Sent to boarding school – enjoyed it  Learned to cook and sew  24 years old – she goes with her father, a congressman, to Washington, D.C. and Philly  May have been in love with a married man (lawyer) – died of TB  On the trip, she fell in love with a married pastor; she saw him as a muse  He left for San Francisco – great crisis in Emily’s life  After the trip, she retreated and became a recluse  Didn’t socialize with anyone outside of her immediate family  Only tasks – writing poetry and household duties  Wore white (never a bride?)  Died at age 55 EMILY DICKINSON

POETRY  Only published a few poems in her lifetime  Friends with editor of Atlantic Monthly  Wrote poems to friends/family  Asked family to destroy her poems when she died  They didn’t!  Discovered dozens of packets  Poems were edited and published by family and friends  1955 – collection called The Poems of Emily Dickinson was published  This time, the editor didn’t make changes to her form (punctuation, syntax, rhyme scheme, etc.)  Poetry different than anything else before it  Precision of word choice (short, sharp poems)  Tried to evoke feelings of everyday objects/happenings  Unique forms  Since her death, recognized as one of the greatest poets in America (and the world?) EMILY DICKINSON