Mark, so glad to hear you speak my mind. Whitman has the stature of the great prophets, and long passages of Leaves of Grass should be officially added to the Bible, they speak with such authority and beauty. I think there are people around here who can only respect his work if they prove that it is actually very metrical after all, but whatever the technique, his cadences and his giant vision are monumental and often overwhelming in their greatness. I'm happy to see you haven't accepted his typecasting as an "American" poet, since he is so much more than that, and, of course, has influenced poets throughout the world. He's so great I can't even be jealous of him, since his poems are so obviously out of my league that even my highly delusional side cannot imagine writing at such a level.
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