Because I am an English major, I decided that Walt Whitman ,one of the foremost influences on American poetry, would be a great choice to create a biographical time line for. Using Timetoast is fun and as I did my research using my handy-dandy American Literature book, I had fun taking snippets of Whitman's rather interesting life and applying them to the project. Since I did a biography, I had to cover the basics--name, birthdate, childhood, career, death, etc.--and I also wanted to make the time line interesting so I added the pictures of Whitman and the various newspapers and poetry books he wrote. Whitman is a fascinating guy, and his growth and life as a writer is inspiring. Despite early criticism for his poetic style, Whitman is now considered the quintessential "American poet" that he always strove to be. In particular, his expansive poem, "Song of Myself" that was added to a later version of Leaves of Grass, is a sprawling written testimony to the American spirit and consciousness. He left no rock unturned in his exploration of what it meant to be an American. His use of free verse is in a way a testament to the inherent free-spirited ideology of the common man and each citizen of the United States. I hope that you enjoy this little excerpt of literary history and possibly gain a new appreciation for poetry and the writers who suffer for their art.
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