Poetry Is Used by Writers and Authors

Poetry is used by writers and authors to convey their feelings, beliefs, and thoughts in a concise manner. Throughout the ages, poetry has developed into an art form, one in which every country, culture, and generation has been able to contribute to it. American poets such as Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, and Langston Hughes have contributed to the genre, each in their respective time periods. Regardless of when these poets wrote their works, they continue to influence people today. Among the most recognizable pieces written by Whitman, Frost, and Hughes are "A noiseless patient spider," "Birches," and "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," respectively. Each poem differs in narrator and perspective, imagery, and message.

Walt Whitman's "A noiseless patient spider" is told from a first-person perspective. An unnamed narrator observes how a spider is isolated from its surroundings, but has the power to connect itself to these surroundings by launching "filament, filament, filament, out of itself." The narrator then compares his soul to the spider, noting how it is "[s]urrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space/Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them." Much like the spider, the narrator's soul is releasing metaphorical filaments with the hopes that the "gossamer threads [his soul] fling[s] catch somewhere." By observing the spider, the narrator believes that he will be able to anchor himself to something allowing his soul to reach out into the "measureless oceans of space."

Robert Frost's "Birches" also deals with the relationship between the individual and nature. "Birches" is also told from a first-person perspective and the narrator remains unnamed. In "Birches," the narrator observes how the ice storms have forced the trees to "bend to left and right." The narrator admits that he likes to imagine that the trees have been bent by a boy who "[b]y riding them down over and over again/Until he took the stiffness out of them." "Birches" is highly descriptive in language, meticulously detailing how the narrator imagines the birches have been bent. Not only does the narrator describe how the trees have been bent by the ice, but also how the young boy he imagines swinging on the trees found the trees and what drove him to begin swinging on the trees. The narrator also writes that he once imagined himself to be a swinger of trees and that he wishes that he could return to a time where he could still swing from trees. The narrator also comments on the innocence surrounding the prospect of being a swinger of trees, commenting that "[o]ne could do worse than be a swinger of birches."