Author Archives: Nicole Monforton

Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg are two poets that have comparable poetic tendencies despite living almost a century apart from one another. Many critics argue that Ginsberg could perhaps have been inspired by Whitman. Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and Ginsberg’s … Continue reading →

Juliana Spahr and Whitman certainly have a sense of interconnectedness in humanity present in their poetry in common. Both poets seem to use that interconnectedness to cope (or mourn?) with an America that is going through changes- and not necessarily … Continue reading →

Sharon Olds portrays Whitman’s nursing history interestingly in her poem “Nurse Whitman”. Though the soldiers lined up in beds in the poem are dead, there is still a shared, erotic energy between Whitman and his patients, for “time becomes impertinent … Continue reading →

War seems to have had greatly influenced the poetry of both George Oppen and Walt Whitman. Oppen’s poem “Disasters” was likely inspired by Oppen’s time spent in the second World War. Both poets were voluntarily active in America’s wars of … Continue reading →

Allen Ginsberg considers Whitman a kindred spirit in his poem “A Supermarket in California”. Throughout the poem, Ginsberg searches for images in modern day America that could serve as some sort of, any sort of, inspiration. Ginsberg is thinking of … Continue reading →

Though poets of a different time in American history, Walt Whitman and Langston Hughes have something in common in terms of subject matter: intertwining the personal and universal. Whitman volunteered with the sick and dying soldiers in a war that … Continue reading →

In 1888, Vincent Van Gogh wrote of Whitman in a letter, “He sees in the future, and even in the present, a world of healthy, carnal love, strong and frank- of friendship- of work- under the great starlit vault of … Continue reading →

“The Artilleryman’s Vision”, I think, is one of the most powerful poems in Drum-Taps because all of the terror that the subject of the poem is experiencing, the frightening noises and imagery, isn’t an account of a scene taking place … Continue reading →

“And as to you Life I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, (No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before)” (245) Though Whitman seems to knock the concept of organized religion in “Song of Myself”, I noticed … Continue reading →