1. “There Was a Child Went Forth”

2. Walt Whitman Walt Whitman was born in 1819
Began writing poetry after traveling to the South.
 Leaves of Grass was first published in 1855 and consisted of just twelve poems. "There Was a Child Went Forth" was one of these first poems.
Whitman continued revising and adding to the poems of Leaves of Grass.
The version published in 1860 had 156 poems.
Edition published the year he died referred to as “The Deathbed Edition”
*odyssey slide and video
Walt Whitman

3. Whitman focused on the nation's growing pains, writing poetry about the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Abraham Lincoln.
His recurring themes on American life made him a uniquely American author.
Believed innovation was central to American culture and tried to be innovative in his approach to poetry.
His poetry is democratic in style; his goal was to make it accessible to the common man.

4. Vernacular: Common or everyday language
Poetry should speak in the "language of ordinary men."
unusual for poets of his day.
The break from the norm didn’t get him acclaim or attention while he lived
Poems observed the world around him, shedding light on the issues facing America as it grew.
Nature and humanity were common themes.
Vernacular: Common or everyday language

5. Meant to be “spoken” not “heard”
What were its most striking elements?
Did you notice the use of repetition?
How did you feel about the rhythm and meter?
How did these impact the meaning of the poem?
How did reading the poem differ from listening to it?
Did you notice anything different by reading it?
Do you agree with Whitman that poetry should be heard, not read? Why or why not?

6. Traditional poetry included a specific structure and form
Experimented with  free verse, a form of poetry in which the lines do not rhyme and have an irregular meter or beat.
BUT his free verse poems are very rhythmic due to his careful use of words, phrasing, and repetition.
Strayed from iambic to trochaic--in part to accommodate the oratorical nature of his work and in part because he liked to do things differently from others.
Free verse: lines do not rhyme, and they have an irregular meter or beat

8. There was a child went forth every day; And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became; And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain part of the day, or for many years, or stretching cycles of years.
Repetition Anaphora: Using the same words or phrase at the beginning of a phrase, clause, or line

9. Motif: a reoccurring thing, element, or idea
Whitman also repeats ideas
the concept of the child becoming an object—a phrase that is repeated six times in the poem.
The repetition calls attention to the theme or main idea of the poetry.
Here it is used to express Whitman's opinions about the continual process of becoming.
Motif: a reoccurring thing, element, or idea