from Specimen Days - Walt Whitman

Question 1

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Answer 1

• Called America’s national poet
• Believed in gathering broad experience
• Developed new kind of poetry—free verse
• Free verse—poetry that doesn’t have a set rhyme scheme or rhythm
• Wrote Leaves of Grass—his life’s work
• Distressed by Civil War
• Volunteer nurse; wrote of experiences

Question 2

vocabulary

Answer 2

• Impromptu—adj.—spontaneous, unplanned
• Contempt—n.—scorn, mockery
• Incredulity—n.—amazed disbelief
• Overt—adj.—open, obvious
• Rendezvoused—v.—met, gathered