Walt Whitman and the Birth of Modern American Poetry

Though many in America wrote poetry earlier, Whitman changed its landscape entirely with his LEAVES OF GRASS. Professor Karbiener, also a New Yorker, introduces us to Whitman's family, his life, and the principal features of his style, especially the "barbaric yawp" that threw off the poetics of Europe, ushering in the new idiom for a new land. In the second half of the course, she leaves analysis to show how Whitman has transformed American poetry and music since. With an easy, hip grace that takes nothing from her scholarship, Karbiener looks at the blues, Springsteen, even Ginsberg's "Howl." She teaches with the natural ease and exuberance of the poet who heard "America singing" and inspired many to sing like him. P.E.F. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine