Jo’s Weblog

Walt Whitman’s crossing Brooklyn Ferry, is a very illustrative poem without him being too specific. Whitman gives serious details about his surroundings within nature and human relations. He makes the mood and has the reader see his perspective of things, he shows without telling; and without overwhelming the poem with too many details, he does it in a way in which the imagery and the symbolism are almost abstract to the reader but somehow understood. Whitman seems to feel this relationship with the masses by forming part of the popular masses, forming part of crowds. He seems to feel that at some point everyone has gone through that same exact experience in the ferry and felt and seen the same things, which makes his connection with the crowd in which he makes himself a part of.