Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself and Alice Fulton’s You Can’t Rhumboogie i

Walt Whitmans Song of Myself and Alice Fultons You Cant Rhumboogie in a Ball and ChainWhen I read numbers, I a great deal tend to look first at its signification and second at how it is written, or its design. The mistake I make when I do this is in assuming that the two are separate, when, in fact, often the meaning of poetry is supported or even sterilized by its form. I volition discuss two poems that embody this close connection between meaning and form in their central use of imagery and repetition. One is a tribute to Janis Joplin, written in 1983 by Alice Fulton, entitled You Cant Rhumboogie in a Ball and Chain. The second is a section from Walt Whitmans 1,336-line masterpiece, Song of Myself, first published in 1855. The imagery in from each one poem differs in purpose and effect, and the rhythms, though created through repetition in both poems, are quite different as well. As I reach the end of each poem, however, I am left with a mighty gentlemans gentleman p resence lingering in the words. In Fultons poem, that presence is the live-hard-and-die- preadolescent Janis Joplin in Whitmans poem, the presence created is an aspect of the poet himself.Alice Fultons mod sestina You Cant Rhumboogie in a Ball and Chain finds consonance in the repetition of similar images through reveal the closed form poem. These images score together to create a unique and disturbing picture of the young rock icon Janis Joplin. Addressed directly to Joplin, the poem strictly follows the sestina form six six-line stanzas, followed by a three-line envoy. The distinct feature of the sestina is that the same six words conclude the lines of every stanza, simply changing order harmonize to a set pattern from one stanza to the next. I imagine that to put out a sestina, the poet... ...he poem rough a single figure Fulton puts Joplin at the center of her poem, while Whitmans poetic world is drawn around and even within himself. Both capture raw details of huma n life and misery in their imagery. Both use repetition to define an irregular but recognizable rhythm. Yet the two poems beat out their rhythms in distinct and utterly different measures, leaving me with two powerful figures, created by the poems forms, which have their own purpose and form in the larger world beyond poetry. Works CitedFulton, Alice. You Cant Rhumboogie in a Ball and Chain. Approaching Poetry Perspectives and Responses. Ed. Peter Schakel and Jack Ridl. New York St. Martins Press, 1997. 128-29.Whitman, Walt. Song of Myself. 1855 ed. Walt Whitmans Song of Myself. Edwin Haviland Miller. Iowa City University of Iowa Press, 1989. 9-11.