OPINION TIME

>>7396529
I think he's a poet.
That's my opinion.

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>>7396529

Homer... Dante... Shakespeare...

Whitman!

>>7396529
One of the few to do free verse right. Great poet.

>>7396529
Great, but he's not the best.

>>7396533

Just don't like poetry? I can understand that.

>>7396555

Who's best?

>>7396563
big jay-z and nas

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He's truly classic yo :)

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If you have the time, give this a read. It's one of his best:

It is time to explain myself—Let us stand up.

What is known I strip away;
I launch all men and women forward with me into THE UNKNOWN.

The clock indicates the moment—but what does eternity indicate?

We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers;
There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.

Births have brought us richness and variety,
And other births will bring us richness and variety.

I do not call one greater and one smaller;
That which fills its period and place is equal to any.

Were mankind murderous or jealous upon you, my brother, my sister?
I am sorry for you—they are not murderous or jealous upon me;
All has been gentle with me—I keep no account with lamentation;
(What have I to do with lamentation?)

I am an acme of things accomplish’d, and I an encloser of things to be.

My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs;
On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the steps;
All below duly travel’d, and still I mount and mount.

Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me;
Afar down I see the huge first Nothing—I know I was even there;
I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist,
And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon.

Long I was hugg’d close—long and long.

Immense have been the preparations for me,
Faithful and friendly the arms that have help’d me.

Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen;
For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings;
They sent influences to look after what was to hold me.

Before I was born out of my mother, generations guided me;
My embryo has never been torpid—nothing could overlay it.

For it the nebula cohered to an orb,
The long slow strata piled to rest it on,
Vast vegetables gave it sustenance,
Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths, and deposited it with care.

All forces have been steadily employ’d to complete and delight me;
Now on this spot I stand with my robust Soul.

>>7396563
Crane

>>7396529
One of the most authory faces that ever existed.

>>7396529
I love how his writing feels so modern for its time. I remember reading him in a American Naturalism course and being really blown away going from traditional reading 19th century writers (Hawthorne, Fanny Fern, Melville) and then reading Whitman. Maybe his prose is a bit perverted, often times a bit too 'naturale' in a way.. but it propelled writing in a direction that exhumed creativity.

>>7396682

how the fuck is Crane better than Whitman? Crane is great, but he hadn't the vision or originality of Whitman. I don't think it's even a close contest. As someone who loves Crane, I'd even put Dickinson above him.