New World Poetry, Because it Draws Many

¶ … new world poetry, because it draws many connections between Walt Whitman's original work and the new world poetry that he predicted. The introduction was especially interesting to think about because we tend to believe that modern society has progressed, but as this passage shows, our world is very similar to the Industrial Age that influenced so much of Whitman's poetry. When you say that "today's world is full of different social classes ... (and) a person in this new industrial, marketable world is considered by their title, income and where they stand in the social scale," this unfortunate fact of life that we usually ignore becomes clear. I also like how you immediately connect the introduction to Whitman's Introduction to Leaves of Grass, saying that his work "displays a much different view of the human value" while also mentioning his concept of new world poetry. When an essay begins with a strong introduction like this one, readers like myself find their imagination has been captured, which makes the rest of the essay that much more interesting to read.

Another excellent aspect of this essay was the part when you observed how "a new world poet believes that men's worth is not measureable by how much one has or makes but rather by how good that man's soul is," because it can be difficult to determine what Whitman really meant when he spoke of poetry for a new world. I found myself becoming intrigued as I read about new world poetry as being able to "know and say the truth," because I have always believed that poetry and literature's most basic function is to reveal the truths hidden behind reality. Your choice to include passages from Martin Espada's poem Blessed Be the Truth-Tellers made perfect sense from this perspective, because Prada's beautiful poem shows how fragile our concept of truth and deceit can truly become. The scene Prada presents in his poem, of a boy fearfully anticipating his scheduled tonsil-removal surgery while being misled by the trusted adults in his life, illustrates how an abstract idea like truth can shift depending on the situation. Just as Whitman believed that the best poets were able to know and speak the truth, Prada's simple man, Jack the Truth-Teller, possesses the soul of a poet, speaking the truth simply because it is all he knows how to say.