Walt Whitman and the use of poetry

Every poem is an answer to the question: what is poetry for? Write about how any one poet has confronted this question in his or her work. Every poem is the poet’s attempt to answer the question: what is poetry for, and no less the work of Walt Whitman, perhaps one of American’s greatest poets. In “Song of Myself”, he wrote “Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the …

…that come with knowledge. Walt Whitman wrote that “The words of the true poem give you more than poems/ They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behaviour, histories, essays, daily life and everything else” in “Song of the Answerer”. What is poetry for? It gives one a perspective into life, past the superficiality of appearances, and in understanding life better, gain more experience. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography** 1. Walt Whitman "Leaves of Grass"