I found it difficult to understand most of Walt Whitman's poems as I do to most poems in general.
             So I narrowed them down to two of the poems that I liked. In the first poem I read, "Song of Myself", Whitman jumps from topic to topic in almost every other line. The poem gave me a problem understanding where he was going with his poems as a speaker. I do have an understanding though, that Whitman himself is the speaker (as we call all poets)in this poem. Whitman pretty much declares it is "Walt Whitman Day," it's the celebration of his life. He embraces the outdoors with this simple line, "The atmosphere is not perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless, It is for my forever, I am in love with it" (21). This explains how much he loves the world and nature, and how everything blends together for him. There is some rhythm in this poem, but really no rhyme.
             Whitman uses some metaphors, and personifications. Whitman describes the "I," that represents
             things that go on in everyday life. The "Me myself" is the observer of the "I", as it observes
             everything in his life, and the "Soul" represents one of the essences of life which is nature.
             The other short poem, "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer", was an easier read
             for me because I didn't have to read it ten times like I did the other ones. In this poem it
             seems that Whitman is the character, because once again he embraces nature. The poem starts
             off as the speaker sitting in a lecture room, listening to an astronomer lecturing a class about
             the constellation of astronomy in every inch of the way. Whitman gives specific details like,
             "When the proofs, the figures were ranged in columns before me, when I was shown the charts
             and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them" (28). He also brings out his frustrations in the
             poem of being confined indoors, as...