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By
Jasmine Gold
Walt Whitman was born in west hills, long island, New York
May 31 1819.He was the second oldest of seven siblings. He
went
to school for six years, then at age eleven he went to work at
law offices to
make money for his family; this was all the formal education he
ever received. He
worked at the law offices of James B. Clarke and his son, Edward
Clark. Edward
helped Walt improve his handwriting and signed him up for the
local library. This
started Waltd s lifelong love of literature. After he finished
working at the law
offices he went to work as an apprentice compositor. He wrote
many short pieces
that appeared in the news paper. While Walt was still a teenager
his family moved
living him to work for news papers in Brooklyn. He supported the
idea that slavery
not be allowed in the new territories the U.S. had acquired. At
age seventeen he
moved back with his family and became a school teacher. Unlike
other school
teachers of his time he refused to use physical discipline with
his students. He
taught till 1841 when he decided to take on journalism as his
full time career. He
worked for and edited many Brooklyn and New York newspapers.
After working for
many New York and Brooklyn papers he went to work for a paper in
new Orleans.
There he experienced firsthand just how cruel slavery really
was. He started
writing poetry when he was 36 years old. latter he came back to
Brooklyn to the
e free soilf newspaper where he kept developing his unique style
of poetry. In
1855 Walt wrote and published his first poem book leaves of
grass . It had only
twelve untilled poems. In 1856 he released his second edition of
the book, it
contained 33 tilled poems. During Waltd s career he continued to
add to, revise and
edit leaves of grass. At the outbreak of the civil war Walt
wrote freelance
journalism and visited wounded soldiers at New York hospitals.
He then traveled to
Washington to care for his brother who had been badly wounded in
the war. He
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stayed in Washington for eleven years. He worked at a hospital
helping take care
of patients. Also he took a job as clerk for the department of
interior. This ended
when he was fired by the secretary of interior for being the
author of leaves of
grass, he found it e rude and offensivef despite his abilities
Walt struggled
throughout his lifetime to make ends meet. In Washington he
lived on a clerkd s
salary and a few modest royalties. He spent any extra money he
had buying
supplies for the patients he nursed. He also sent money to his
now widowed mother.
In early 1870s he moved to carnden NJ where he could visit his
dying mother at his
brotherd s house. After suffering from a stroke Walt could not
return to
Washington. Therefore he stayed with his brother till the 1882
version of leaves of
grass gave him enough money to buy a house in Camden. Whitman
spent his last
years working on revisions and editions to another volume of
leaves of grass. Also
he prepared his final volume of poems and prose, Good-bye, My
fancy. He died
March 26 1892. He was buried in a tomb he designed and built in
Harleigh cemetery.
Throughout Whitmand s life many people helped and inspired him.
One of
these people was Louisa van Velsor ,his mother how he attributed
creativity to.
Marquis de Lafeyette was another one of Whitmand s heroes of the
American
revolution. Walt greatly admired him and looked up to him as a
role model. The last
person that really helped Walt is Ralph Waldo Emerson was a well
known writer.
With his speeches he changed Waltd s idea of what he could do as
a writer. In one
of his speeches Waldo called for a poet who would just speak his
mind. Being one
of Waltd s heroes Ralph in that way he helped steer Walt towards
poetry.
Whitman started writing when he was 11 but he didnd t write
poetry till he was 36
years old. Walt wrote in the mid-1800s, during and before the
civil war. This time
period was known as the manifest destiny. This was a period
where America was
rapidly expanding into the Louisiana Purchase and their
territory gained by the
Mexican war. During this time slavery was a big issue, including
the issue of which
states were slave states and which where free states. This
probably was part of
the reason Walt wrote about slavery in his poems.
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Walt wrote free range poetry, usually about slavery or nature.
Most people
loved his writing but during the civil war a large handful of
people disliked it. The
Walt Whitman poem I decided to recite is O Captain! My Captain.
Walt is writing
about a captain dyeing but itd s really about his father who had
just died and losing
that leader in his life. Walt wants him to come back to him
hence the lines e O
Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up -- for
you the flag is
flung -- for you the bugle trills.f He tries to tell himself itd
s just a dream this is
shown in lines e This arm beneath your head! It is some dream
that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.f Two poetic devices used on and off
in the poem are
rhyme and repetition.
Works cited
y Tayson, Richard. "Walt Whitman - Poets.org - Poetry, Poems,
Bios & More."Poets.org -Poetry, Poems, Bios & More. Academy
of American Poets, n.d. Web. 16 May 2010.
.
y Poetry for Young People: Walt Whitman (Poetry For Young
People). null. Reprint. NewYork: Sterling, 2008. Print
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