Whitman was trying to write the big, American epic poem that bridged the gap between academics, artists, people of the working and non-working classes and people of riches. He was chided it for it, considered “immoral” (meaning sexualized) for it, and eventually celebrated as one of the most important poets of his time, and perhaps the most important American poet to have lived (yes, I am including many of my favorites, Stephen Crane, Alan Ginsberg, Edgar Poe, John Ashberry, and James Schuyler when I write this). How did he pull it off? Well, let’s start with long lines.
Granted, I titled this post with a bit of a smirk but nonetheless- Whitman does have long lines.
Where his lines are indented, as shown here, the typesetter is showing that his poetic line is so long that it runs off the page, and must continue on through to the following, excuse me, line. This is nothing new to those prosy poets today: Poets writing today struggle with their long lines stylistically.
Do they justify their lines to form a block of text like this one, thus visually implying an intention to nullify their line breaks? This is a bit imposing and stiff. Not only that, but it does not feel prosy enough, in my opinion, to justify the justification. Looking at a tight block of text like this can be difficult for the eye. And readability is key, no matter what other poets tell you.
Or do they simply default to the modern English language style of letting the line break where the margin makes it break, thus creating a fringed, uneven profile to their poem? It’s all in a day’s work for a poet who cares.
And poets should care. I mean, Whitman did, right? Yes, Whitman did. Whitman didn’t just let his lines run because he was lazy. We have, multiple editions of his Leaves of Grass to show that he was anything but unconcerned about how his poems turned out. Whitman was “going for something” with his long lines. Broad, epic lines—that’s what his lines were, and if the voice of his poems didn’t tell you so, then certainly the way one could be left breathless after reading one of his longer, tangential sentences might.
