Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself and Alice Fulton’s You Can’t Rhumboogie i

Walt Whitmans tenor of Myself and Alice Fultons You contributet Rhumboogie in a lummox and ChainWhen I read poetry, I often bleed to look first at its meaning and second at how it is written, or its regulate. The mistake I make when I do this is in anticipate that the two are separate, when, in fact, often the meaning of poetry is support or point defined by its form. I will debate two verse forms that embody this close connection between meaning and form in their central use of imagery and repetition. One is a good word to Janis Joplin, written in 1983 by Alice Fulton, entitled You Cant Rhumboogie in a Ball and Chain. The second is a section from Walt Whitmans 1,336-line masterpiece, poetry of Myself, first published in 1855. The imagery in each poem differs in purpose and effect, and the rhythms, though created through repetition in both poems, are quite different as well. As I make believe the end of each poem, however, I am left with a sinewy human front linge ring in the words. In Fultons poem, that presence is the live-hard-and-die-young Janis Joplin in Whitmans poem, the presence created is an aspect of the poet himself.Alice Fultons modern sestina You Cant Rhumboogie in a Ball and Chain finds unity in the repetition of similar images throughout the closed form poem. These images hold in concert to create a unique and disturbing picture of the young stimulate icon Janis Joplin. Addressed directly to Joplin, the poem strictly follows the sestina form 6 six-line stanzas, followed by a three-line envoy. The distinct feature of the sestina is that the same six words conclude the lines of every stanza, simply changing order according to a set pattern from one stanza to the next. I imagine that to write a sestina, the poet... ...he poem around a single figure Fulton puts Joplin at the centre of attention of her poem, while Whitmans poetic worldly concern is drawn around and even within himself. Both capture raw details of human lifetime and misery in their imagery. Both use repetition to define an bit but recognizable rhythm. Yet the two poems beat out their rhythms in distinct and utterly different measures, leaving me with two powerful figures, created by the poems forms, which have their own purpose and form in the larger world beyond poetry. Works CitedFulton, Alice. You Cant Rhumboogie in a Ball and Chain. Approaching Poetry Perspectives and Responses. Ed. Peter Schakel and Jack Ridl. New York St. Martins Press, 1997. 128-29.Whitman, Walt. Song of Myself. 1855 ed. Walt Whitmans Song of Myself. Edwin Haviland Miller. Iowa City University of Iowa Press, 1989. 9-11.