A Child said, What is the Grass?
This poem is written by Walt Whitman. One could quickly notice that there are no formal structure in each stanza and no specific rhyming patterns which strongly depicts him as one of the starters of free verse poets during the 1850s. Furthermore the poem started off with a child asking an elder a question, which was also very uncommon during this time.
Despite the fact that the elder replied to the child stating that he does not know any better about grasses than he do. The elder still managed to think of a variety of answers that could have the potential to reply to the child's curiosity. The diverse answers that the elders gave strongly depicts the idea that one could also have a variety of perspectives or opinions on the same subject and everyone should value every single idea as if it worth a lot. "Growing among black folks as among white", suggests an equality between different races and gender could be found if everyone value ideas from others as if they were from their own. Furthermore Whitman believes that government should be the leading power of treating everyone equally so that its citizens could do the same. In addition, the stanzas two to twelve are more like a stream of consciousness rather than sentences they could perhaps answer the child's question.
At last Whitman, decided to let the elder state a rhetorical question on the topic of death. The elder believed that there is no such thing as death, people are simply alive at some other places. People are sometimes afraid to look forward because they are scare of death, therefore Whitman strongly encourages his readers not to be afraid of death and hence it would make you look into the future instead of the past and most importantly to stay optimistic when one faced any obstacles they could have encountered during the turning points of their life.
Despite the fact that the elder replied to the child stating that he does not know any better about grasses than he do. The elder still managed to think of a variety of answers that could have the potential to reply to the child's curiosity. The diverse answers that the elders gave strongly depicts the idea that one could also have a variety of perspectives or opinions on the same subject and everyone should value every single idea as if it worth a lot. "Growing among black folks as among white", suggests an equality between different races and gender could be found if everyone value ideas from others as if they were from their own. Furthermore Whitman believes that government should be the leading power of treating everyone equally so that its citizens could do the same. In addition, the stanzas two to twelve are more like a stream of consciousness rather than sentences they could perhaps answer the child's question.
At last Whitman, decided to let the elder state a rhetorical question on the topic of death. The elder believed that there is no such thing as death, people are simply alive at some other places. People are sometimes afraid to look forward because they are scare of death, therefore Whitman strongly encourages his readers not to be afraid of death and hence it would make you look into the future instead of the past and most importantly to stay optimistic when one faced any obstacles they could have encountered during the turning points of their life.