What is your favorite poem by Walt Whitman?

Question

What do you recommend and why do you like the poem you chose?

Answer 1

It's hard to choose only one, but the one I remember best and think of most often is the first one that really turned me on to Walt Whitman (after I'd been rejecting him for several years):

When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer

When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.


But having chosen this one, I must add that there are many sections of Song of Myself that I also keep going back to. My favorite QUOTATION from Whitman is from #52. I just like his "barbaric YAWP," I guess.

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.

Answer 2

Leaves of Grass

Answer 3

Song of Myself. ... from Leaves of Grass. I remember learning it in high school and still remember much of it.

Answer 4

oh captain my caqptian... don't know why but i've always loved it... i think it's the sense of loyalty i get from it.