Notes for Select Whitman Poems

before i go- is Whitman contemplating his own mortality or leaving his mother? amid these songs- Whitman is immortalizing himself and his mother through poetry

The tombstone is the concrete image of the final resting place as the period is the grammatical symbol for the final resting place The end.

From the Oxford English Dictionary: grave- v- to bury, inter line- n- a cord in the body (as in umbilical cord)

Another beautiful memorial of his mother. She is the ideal woman to Whitman

Intense love that he has for his mother is seen here. Representative of 19th century ideals of the mother-son bond

lines 5-7 are set apart in parentheses. gives visual of a coffin. Although Whitman has many great memories the mother's death, her lifeless form is central to the poem

Whitman says mother is gone physically YET her memory lives on in me. She will not die for me.

The use of alliteration Memories, my, mother, maternity are like a baby calling out "ma ma ma" Whitman is calling out one last time for his beloved mother

These contrasting images provide the reader with Whitman's sense of death's incomprehensibility Webster's definition of "dim" is "not perceiving clearly or distinctly" Whitman does not understand this supreme land without bounds

Whitman enters into an intimate relationship with the reader Calling us to journey with him as he contemplates his mother's death and his own mortality