Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Great Regulars: Walt Whitman's poem celebrating Election Day

calls our "quadrennial choosing" a more spectacular and powerful show than national scenic marvels such as Yosemite, Niagara Falls or the "spasmic geyserloops" of Yellowstone.

The poem is not wet or glibly sunny. Whitman chooses to speak of voting day not as beautiful or sacred but as "powerful." He compares it not to forest glades or meadows but to the fluid, dynamic energy of rivers, geysers and waterfalls and to the immense scale of mountains and prairies.

from Robert Pinsky: The Boston Globe: A poem for Election Day

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