Blog Post 14 Witty Whitman

Step 1: Reading Whitman's notebook was an interesting experience. Often, his notes were different to make out. I appears that this notebook was a place for him to write down any idea that comes to mind before he forgets it. The notebook hosts a wealth of ideas and poems such as "The Hills of Brooklyn" and "The Ship of Libertad." Among the notes, Whitman also had various drawing and sketches of men, possibly those mentioned in his poems. It appears to me that the sketches and poems all represent ideas and theories that Whitman had throughout his life. The notebook was the foundation for the poems he wrote and he used it to record all of his ideas, so he could later organize them into cohesive poems. After looking throughout Whitman's notes, it is obvious that he is very creative and used poetry to express his ideas and beliefs.

Step 2: After taking a deeper look at the notebook through the helpful translations, I concluded that my original opinion of Whitman's notebook was mostly accurate. Whitman's priceless notebook was a place where he could absorb in his thoughts and record notes and bits of poetry that were based on his lifetime experiences and the people he idolized or interacted with. Lincoln, Whitman's favorite president was mentioned in the notebook because of Whitman's enormous respect for him. After reading the yellow notes of Whitman's book, I observed that many of his notes were based of the time period he lived in. Whitman experienced the brutality of the civil war and a great deal of his notes were melancholy accounts of the bad emotions that arose on either side during the civil war. Whitman used the civil war as grounds for a great deal of poems. A deeper look at the notebook revealed that Whitman was very observant, and similar to a sponge, absorbed details from his surroundings and used them in all of his poetry.