I Hear America Singing

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1860

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Poem Analysis

Themes

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Further Reading & Resources

Related Poems

“Pioneers, O Pioneers” by Walt Whitman (1865)

Written during the full pitch of the Civil War, the poem represents Whitman at full tilt as the self-anointed America’s Poet. Here the poet celebrates the difficult work of a generation of Americans determined to settle the West, to push past the known and into the vast and uncertain unknown west of the Ohio River. The focus again is on the hard work and endurance of these exemplar Americans who, despite the ongoing war, premised an America rebuilt and stronger than before the war. Much like the blue-collar workers in “I Hear America Singing,” Whitman celebrates the tenacity, determination, and heroic strength of pioneers as the epitome of the American character.

“The People, Yes” by Carl Sandburg (1936)

The Poetry Foundation website contains excerpts of “The People, Yes.” Carl Sandburg happily acknowledged his debt to Whitman and his broad, sweeping affirmation of America. Much as Whitman projected his poem against a nation edging into a civil war, this Sandberg poem, actually a book-length complex of poems, was projected against an America mired in the Great Depression. The celebration of the spirit, energy, moxie, and diligence of the unsung Americans facing the grace challenge of poverty and despair reflects Whitman’s thematic argument, and Sandberg’s deft use of free verse as well acknowledges his admiration for the liberating freedoms of Whitman’s prosody.

“Howl” by Allen Ginsburg (1956)

Not all of Whitman’s descendants were as infatuated with America. Published a scant 20 years after Sandberg’s celebration of America, Allen Ginsberg’s excoriation of the hypocrisies and moral turpitude of America reveals the inevitable darker side of Whitman’s perception of himself as a prophet, a seer for his nation. If Whitman celebrated the best of the American character, Ginsberg uses the same liberated verse forms to condemn the flaws and moral lapses of America in a kind of angry jeremiad (Jeremiah, after all, was a prophet as well). The vision of Whitman should be balanced against the forbidding vision of these descendants of his work, the generation known as the Beats.

Further Literary Resources

‘I Hear America Singing’: Folk Music and National Identity by Rachel Clare Donaldson (2014)

Inevitably, working with Whitman involves re-learning how to listen to a line of poetry. Whitman’s lifelong interest in music—folk music, opera, symphonies, and instrumental quartets—led him to create lines that appear to be careless but are subtle expressions of sonic harmonies. This book reveals how Whitman’s revolutionary “reinvention” of poetic music, in turn, became a shaping element in the definition of the emerging American identity and ultimately in the direction of American poetry itself.

"‘I Hear America Singing’: The Relationship between American Religion and Democratic Values in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass” by David Mudd (2018)

Although it investigates the wider reach of Whitman’s collection, the article offers this insight: drawing on the religious bedrock upon which America had been constructed and drawing on the vocabulary of spiritualism and fusing the role of a poet with that of a priest or seer, the religious arguments of Whitman’s nationalist poetry become the quintessential expression of American “exceptionalism.” Infused by his journalist’s sense of documentary realism (his endless lists, for example), these poems, among them “I Hear America Singing,” reveal with “emotional” awareness the implications of that transcendental reality.

“I Hear America Sing: Promoting Democracy through Literature” by Donald Canan (2013)

The article tackles the thorny question of how (or why) Whitman created the poet-persona that speaks in his poems about America. Canan looks into how promoting a single person into the role of exceptional seer in turn promotes democracy. The article suggests that Whitman’s broader argument is that if his American reader actually listens and takes to heart the gospel message of the poet-seer, then democracy itself is fused with a spiritual vigor and a sense of promise. Learn from the prophet—the poet’s very un-exceptionalism (like the Christ) makes his evident exceptionalism evident. In turn, the poet/speaker shapes a kind of democratic spiritualism through the vehicle of poetry itself.

Listen to the Poem

Bob Dylan Recites “I Hear America Singing” on YouTube

It would seem a perfect pairing. Although there are several recordings of “I Hear America Sing”:—including one set against the image of an American flag and set to a pounding beat of a Sousa march (odd given the poem’s spirituality) and another in which a photo of Whitman is made to speak the poem through the digital magic of special effects—by far the most intriguing recording is done by Nobel laureate and iconic folk singer Bob Dylan, available on YouTube. With his familiarity with the music of words, Dylan delivers the poem in careful cadence, taking advantage of the commas to avoid the feeling of a sing-songy chant. He relishes the sonic interplay of the words, the alliteration, the long vowels, without overkilling the performance. In turn, the poem is both spoken and performed.

Related Titles

By Walt Whitman

Study Guide

A Glimpse