Essay about Poem Analysis - "Miracles" by Walt Whitman

A poem written by South Carolina pastor, Jeremy Rutledge has given readers a lot to think about. The poem was composed after the great Hurricane Harvey tragedy in Houston. In his poem Rutledge mentions the word pray many times but the meaning of it goes way beyond that. When praying for something it is important to know the aspects and struggles of it, and that is exactly what Rutledge is doing in this poem, stating all the things that make Houston unique, diverse, and capable to rise from it all.

    From looking at the titles of Walt Whitman's vast collection of poetry in Leaves of Grass one would be able to surmise that the great American poet wrote about many subjects -- expressing his ideas and thoughts about everything from religion to Abraham Lincoln. Quite the opposite is true, Walt Whitman wrote only about a single subject which was so powerful in the mind of the poet that it consumed him to the point that whatever he wrote echoed of that subject. The beliefs and tenets of transcendentalism were the subjects that caused Whitman to write and carried through not only in the wording and imagery of his poems, but also in the revolutionary way that he chose to write his poetry.

Certain things some people do can seem beyond human powers, even defying gravity. In “The Juggler,” the poet Richard Wilbur describes the awe and wonder felt by the speaker watching the juggler; the speaker is amazed by the gracefulness of the balls flying in the air and even portrays the juggler as reeling in heaven itself. Through the use of imagery portraying the juggler’s magical performance, specific structure and syntax of the poem, and diction that elicits the godly powers of the juggler, the speaker describes the juggler as a superhuman who defies gravity while expressing the speaker’s own inability to overcome the challenges in his daily life and thus his negative view of the world.

(…) the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air—look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire (…). What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like

In the third stanza, the diction of “heaven” and “noble” allows the speaker to craft an image of an almost godlike juggler. This view of the juggler creates the tone of amazement and ardent which breaks through the previous gloomy description of the earth in the first stanza which “falls/ So in our hearts from brilliance” (lines 3-4). This reveals that the world the juggler has made, unlike the earth which the speaker doesn’t appear to have fond feelings of, is a joyful and light-hearted place that the speaker is easily captivated by. As the juggler “reels that heaven in” (line 16), creates an atmosphere of an almost unearthly experience. This description of the juggler as a master of spiritual elements allows readers to view how the speaker's attitude is uplifted and enlightened.

Throughout the poem the author uses imagery to describe the juggler’s appearance and the tricks he is accomplishing in his show. For example, Wilbur states, “it takes a sky-blue juggler with five red balls...to shake our gravity up.” (lines 6-7). The author’s description of the juggler as someone who can “shake our gravity up” (line 7) shows that the juggler is someone who has a tremendous impact on the audience and the speaker because the audience is full of serious people and the juggler evokes happiness and astonishment from the audience. Moreover, by saying this the audience is able to get an insight into the life of the speaker; we are able to see that not a lot of things happen in the speaker's life that make the speaker happy. Additionally, Wilbur shows the reader the the juggler is performing, the author says, “ Oh, on his toe the table is turning, the broom’s Balancing up on his nose, and the plate whirls. On the tip of the broom!” (lines 9-21). We can see the juggler as he is performing his great trick and how the crowd is happy and amazed at what he is accomplishing through his performance when the author says, “ Damn, what a show,we cry…” ( line 21). Having the crowd cheer at the juggler as he completes his trick of the balancing act showed that people are made happy with small things like the juggling trick the juggler was performing for the crowd.

This collection of over ninty words is much more than just a poem. It’s a story of millions of people. It ties in rhymes, sadness, happiness, religion and anger though a broad spectrum of other ideas.

Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.

The dominant themes that are more pervasive in Whitman’s poetry are democracy, life/death cycles, individualism, and nature. These themes play major roles in some of his more notable poems such as “Songs of Myself” or “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” He used democracy as a theme to bring society together, and unite everyone based on their general beliefs. He depicted life and death cycles to merge society together on a spiritual level. Despite his eagerness to unite society he also embraced individualism, and is also a persistent theme in most of his poetry. Nature was an important concept that Whitman used to convince people who there were more important things to life than class structure. He used nature connect us all, and encourage people to

Poetry is often meant to be smooth, flowing, pleasing to the ear and the mind. To achieve this effect, many poets use different poetic techniques to help convey the meanings of their poetry. In the sonnet, 'Yet Do I Marvel' written by Countee Cullen, many different features of poetry is used. In this essay, I will discuss the relationship between the meanings and the theme Cullen tries to convey in his sonnet and the techniques of metaphors, both religious and non-religious, allusions to Greek mythology, different rhyme schemes and repetition that he uses.

In 1855, when Whitman’s “Song of Myself” was first printed, baseball was still very new. It was clearly one of the distinctive elements of the American experience that Whitman found worth absorbing into the song of himself, even though the term “baseball” had not yet made its way into the dictionaries. At various times over the years, Whitman would extol many other sports, but there was only one sport he would return to throughout his life, and that was baseball. To him, baseball was an activity with its own built-in localized slang, and its own essential connections to American culture; a game conceived, developed, and originally played only in the United States of America. Clearly for Whitman, baseball was the sport that coincided with the best aspects of the American character. In it he saw the emergence of national sport--one that had a rhythm and movement distinctly American. In this game, he saw the possibilities for democratic crowds and brotherhood that he would celebrate in his poetry (Folsom 30-53).

“The relationship between the energies of the inquiring mind that an intelligent reader brings to the poem and the poem’s refusal to yield a single comprehensive interpretation enacts vividly the everlasting intercourse between the human mind, with its instinct to organise and harmonise, and the baffling powers of the universe about it.”

The poem has many different hidden meanings but they are all based around a common theme of faith.

Miracle On St David's - In this poem one of the critical themes is mental health and the ability to see past the prejudices and stigma of mental health issues. It is also to see people for the person they are and not the way they are perceived. Although the people in this poem have been institutionalised, that is not to say that they are not human beings and can still feel emotions. "The nurses are frozen, alert, the patients seem to listen. He is hoarse but word-perfect. Outside the daffodils are still as wax, a thousand, ten thousand, their syllables unspoken, their creams and yellow still." After years of silence, this man recites 'The Daffodils' without missing a word. He has been stirred by the poetry and moved to recite a poem that is very close to him. The author wants the reader to see that this is still a person and not just an empty vessel of a human being.

Whitman is known for being revolutionary for his use of free form verse in the nineteenth century. This style is evident throughout Song of Myself which aids in his descriptions and devices used to get his meaning across. His grouping of three lines per stanza for this section is common for the entirety of “Song of Myself”, which has variations of three line to occasionally five line stanzas. His freedom in his poem’s style and lack of rhyme scheme allow him to fully showcase his thoughts in a new way for this time period. An overall summary of the poem is Whitman’s pondering of himself and the world in behavior and personality to him being fully confident in himself with no existential crisis. For the first half of section 20, Whitman’s character of himself questions everything beyond the ownership of himself. He questions the integrity of other people’s identities and characters as well as ignoring social norms involving manners and religious behavior. The declaration of a lack of manners and questioning the church would have been scandalous to