Using Walt Whitman’s poem I Hear America Singing as inspiration (see poem below), participants in the TPS special topics workshop American Views and Voices each wrote a poem. Their creative works reflect the diverse voices of America represented in Library of Congress online collections and resources they explored. Those explorations focused on ethnic and cultural collections, inventors, women’s suffrage and responses to wars and crises.
Click here to read the participant poems
I Hear America Singing - 1900
by Walt Whitman
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand
singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he tands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or
at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of
the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows,
robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
