Lilacs

The first time I read through this poem written by Walt Whitman, I had no idea what the author was trying to convey through this poem. However, in the last class we got together in our groups, and we talked on what lines we liked and what lines we were confused on. That discussion helped me understand the poem a little more along with the discussion we had before we split up into groups. Professor Corrigan discussed the history and structure involved with this poem and that really got me started on somewhat understanding the poem. The poem was related with the memorial of President Lincoln, and also described the pain and suffering that went on for those who lost friends and family due to war.

Obviously, if I tried to read it by myself and think what the poem meant I would not have thought the poem would be talking about all that. Some types of literature do not come out clear for us right away. Sometimes we have to either re-read the passage again, or just try and discuss it with someone else that may know what the meaning of it is. I learned the most about this poem throughout all the discussion we had on the poem. There are other people that think more in depth and creatively, so discussion can help bring out ideas from those people and together we can figure what the message of the poem is. I definitely thought that the poem about the onions was a lot easier to decipher than this poem that we just read about the lilacs. Maybe Walt Whitman is a more complex writer than the person who wrote the poem on the onions. Maybe the poem made more sense to me, because it talked about some type of food when Whitman’s was about flowers and other things.