ShmoopTube

00:04

[Coop and Dino singing]

00:13

Have you ever read a poem and felt totally confused? [Girl reading a poem]

00:16

Maybe it used difficult words, or complex metaphors, or was just straight-up all-over-the-place?

00:21

Y'know, like...

00:22

Horseradish rounds the bend of my heart O'er hill, o'er dale, the wasabi rages on

00:27

And all the while… …the ketchup

00:29

…slowly… ….weeps.

00:31

…Yeah, we just made that up, but still. [Ketchup bottle weeps]

00:33

Some poems are that complicated.

00:35

A good example of a more complicated poem that's…y'know, actually good would be Walt

00:40

Whitman's “I Hear America Singing.”

00:42

Let's start by reading it now. [Book opens]

00:44

Hit pause if you have to.

00:45

We'll be over here, writing sonnets about mustard and mayonnaise.

00:53

Pretty nice sounding poem, huh?

00:55

But how much of it did you follow? [Girl with a red cape walks through a maze]

00:57

If you got confused a few times along the way, we don't blame you – it's not quite

01:00

as simple our amazing horseradish poem.

01:02

So let's go back and figure out anything that might have left us scratching our heads. [Girl scratches head]

01:05

Beginning with the word “varied,” right there in the first line.

01:08

If things are “varied” that means that they're different, or not the same.

01:12

The word after that is “carols” which means songs.

01:15

So this first line is saying that there are a whole bunch of different songs being sung

01:19

about America.

01:20

After this, he goes on to list a whole bunch of different people and what they're singing. [Teacher discussing poem to class]

01:24

The next word that might trip you up is in the line about mechanics – see that word “blithe”?

01:28

That's just a fancy word for saying someone is happy or joyous.

01:32

So now we know that the mechanic is singing a happy song. [Mechanic walks and musical notes appear]

01:35

So…probably nothing by Adele, then.

01:38

And what about the word “mason”?

01:40

We know it must be a person, because that seems to be the pattern Whitman is following

01:43

in the poem – but what is a mason?

01:46

Never fear, Shmoop is here! [Man wearing shmoop t-shirt appears]

01:48

Mason is a word for a builder that works with brick or stone.

01:51

Easy, huh?

01:52

In fact, Whitman seems to be listing lots of jobs in this poem – like “ploughboy."

01:56

Which is a word for someone whose job it is to lead animals with a plow.

01:59

Nearly there – but we've got one more fancy word to cover, and it comes in the second

02:04

to last line of the poem.

02:05

That word right there... robust. [word robust highlighted in yellow]

02:08

We can see it's in a list that describes young men, which makes sense, since it's another

02:12

word for “strong.”

02:13

That should clear up some of the more confusing words for you.

02:16

The poem isn't really all too complex when you break it down – it's about a whole bunch

02:19

of different people singing a whole bunch of different songs. [People singing songs as they walk by]

02:22

And together, those songs make us America….

02:25

Diverse and beautiful!

02:27

They also probably make our throats sore after a while.

02:29

Singing all day sounds downright exhausting. [Man singing in a meeting and falls to the floor]

Full Transcript