Whitman, Frost, Hughes: Three Great American Poets

¶ … Noiseless Patient Spider" by Walt Whitman

Who is the speaker in this poem? What are his/her concerns/feelings? What words in the poem give you this impression of the speaker?

The speaker of "A Noiseless Patient Spider" by Walt Whitman is the poet himself. The poet is watching a spider weave its web and muses about how this is a metaphor for his own soul seeking out new things.

Does the poem convey any particular sensory images (sight, smell, sound)? What words convey that image?

The language of the poem suggests unfurling and unreeling through the use of repetition and alliteration when describing the spider: "It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, / Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them." The focus of the poem is on visual elements, as Whitman is observing the spider.

Q3. Is there a message in the poem? What words convey that message?

Whitman suggests that all beings in the interconnected web of nature are seeking out new things, new places to anchor. Whitman's soul, like the spider's web is "Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them [the elements of the poet's soul]."

"Birches" by Robert Frost

Q1. Who is the speaker in this poem? What are his/her concerns/feelings? What words in the poem give you this impression of the speaker?

Frost himself is the speaker of the poem, or at least his poetic persona of a New Englander familiar with the land. He is older, given that the poem is a fantasy of what boys like to do: he imagines a boy like he once was bending the birch trees as the young man seeks to climb high, even while the birches eventually bend to the ground

Q2. Does the poem convey any particular sensory images (sight, smell, sound)? What words convey that image?

Two dominant images are present in the poem: the first is that of the ice storm which is the real, likely reason that the trees are bent. The second is Frost's poetic imaginations as he fantasizes about a young, lonely boy climbing the birch trees to heaven. As well as the visual images of the trees Frost also invokes the crackling sound of ice and breaking branches: "Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells/Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust -- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away / You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen." Frost also invokes the sensuous feelings of being in the woods: "Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs."

Q3. Is there a message in the poem? What words convey that message?

Frost suggests that we should all aspire high, even though we cannot reach our goals. His imaginary boy (really, his younger self) tries to climb the trees towards heaven and fails when the birch tree bows down but, he muses "One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."

"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes

Q1. Who is the speaker in this poem? What are his/her concerns/feelings? What words in the poem give you this impression of the speaker?

The speaker of Hughes' poem is essentially all black men: the speaker reflects on the totality of the black experience as he talks about the different places he has seen and his different experiences with rivers.