The Fresh Air Interview: Poet Robert Hass, On Whitman's 'Song Of Myself' IHAS: Poet | Walt Whitman. Whitman's verse is crowded with allusions to song and the singer. The singer is poet, prophet, bard, mystic celebrator of the self--of the poet in everyman, in the worker, in the individual, in America en masse. Whitman's references to music are all-pervading and eclectic; in his various poetic songs he chants hymns to a range of people and experiences from the plantation chorus of Negroes to the strong baritone of the big longshoremen of Mannahatta. While he, ironically, disliked the piano--calling it a parlour instrument--he loved the wide range of orchestral instruments & used them as images to people his poems: drums became the march of nations; birdsong the freedom of flight; bugles were calls to valor or funeral taps; trumpets suggested celebrations of joy and fanfares for ethereal bliss; the cello recalled a young man's heart complaint.
Whitman's poems are, in fact, orchestrated with as full a range of color as any musical score--with voices which rise and fall in dialogue. Student Materials: Acrostic Poems. Browse Notebooks. Poetry Foundation: Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry.