Leaves of Grass (Bantam Classics)
by Walt Whitman
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Book Reviews of Leaves of Grass (Bantam Classics)
Book Review: America's First Hippie Rock Star Was Walt Whitman
Summary: 5 Stars
Leave it to high school English teachers, those frequent crushers of dreaming souls, to find a way to put young minds off this steamroller of a poetry collection. No rhymes to bore anyone, no meter, simply a transfer of pure mental energy. It took me a while to get into Whitman because I knew him thru a lot of boring teachers who tried to squeeze the very life out of these works and inject them with artificial, completely sanitized "meaning". This is poetry at its most raw. It does for the written word what Stravinsky did with music. It doesn't need dressing up and it utterly rejects the falsity of good manners. As Whitman joyfully tells us of himself: "I am not the least bit civilized!" This is wild stuff and it'll kick you sideways if you give it half a chance. Read it and then choose the right moment to sound your own barbaric yawp!
Book Review: Fallen Leaves
Summary: 1 Stars
Although he may be as genius as he is, Walt Whitman is just random. His structure and development are atrocious, leaving us in a cloud of confusion. His lists, names, and metaphors can only be described as random thought. And don't even get me started on his comma use. That's how my little sister writes for crying out loud! I mean, don't you remember? You'd get lucky if you found an "and" in there somewhere. Granted, he did revolutionize poetry and writing as we know it. However, certain selections for his ever famous Song of Myself show that he can sure describe those bodily actions that he seems to love so much. I can cut him some slack, probably because he's a romantic writer, but his random stringing of words, phrases, and lists do his poetry injustice. Poor Jonathon Edwards would be turning in his grave...Book Review: Review of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass"
Summary: 5 Stars
This thick soft-backed "pocket" book has 490 pages. It could be called The Complete Whitman. It contains hundreds of poems.
I am a senior citizen who had not read any Whitman for more than 50 years and am enjoying it very much. His descriptions of the 19th century's people, places, and inventions are eye-openers. He was actually a feminist before there was such a concept, and also an abolitionist. He truly believed in equality and democracy. He was a nature lover and wanted to protect the environment.
Of course, there are parts I could quibble about, but that would be foolish. Whitman was a man ahead of his time.
Book Review: Moving!! Colossal!! A Celebration of being Alive!!
Summary: 5 Stars
The best way to appreciate Whitman is to read him aloud as you walk down a street or the country side.You'd feel electricity stirring within you and all else would change too.Even the inanimate would seeth with life and vitality amidst the gentle choreography of nature.Thats what happens to me when I read "The Song Of the Open Road".It's amazing that Whitman could capture the deep inherent things we feel inside,things that stir us inside out and yet find it difficult to express.A timeless clasic that will stir people from generation to generation.Nothing like it.Book Review: a classic of American poetry
Summary: 5 Stars
No doubt influenced by the free verse of ancient Greek poetry, Walt Whitman wrote about 19th c. America in the same way that the ancient Greek and Roman poets wrote about their own time and world. Much praised and criticized when it was first published, "Leaves of Grass" remains a wonderfully innovative, original, observant, wise, sensually unashamed, and heroic portrait of American identity, and a eulogy in praise of American people, places, ideas and things. David Rehak
author of "Poems From My Bleeding Heart"