A Poem: The Music of Life

In Walt Whitman´s Leaves of Grass, he talks about America. He says that the country is made up of a lot of people from every culture and the diversity that there is. Whitman continues talking about the potential that every person has for poetic expression, and that America is an enormous poem. However, I couldn´t see how regular people have potential for poems, and what essence Whitman can see on them.

Reading the 14th poem of Leaves of Grass, Whitman adds to his thought by saying, “What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easier, is Me; Me going on for my chances, spending for vast returns; Adoring myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me; Not asking the sky to come down to my good will; Scattering it freely forever.” (Leaves of Grass. Walt Whitman. 250-254) This first call my attention, because Whitman doesn´t take his time to answer of even put a question mark on the question he starts the paragraph with. Also, he capitalizes the word “Me”, and he answers his own question with the “Me”, therefore since the first line he is making an emphasis in the Me.

Reading, I understood that everyone cares a lot about themselves, and everything they do has a reason that feed their ego. Therefore, this self confident person is the poetic side of each individual. Their passion they have for themselves is what makes them make an effort every single day, and that’s the poem. A poem doesn´t have to be written, because it is made out of the feelings and a thought of the author, so just by having those emotions, a poem is made.