ican portrayals, appropriately diverse scenes of a democracy - Whitman suggests that all people are involved in continually creating and sustaining America. The typical reader of "Song of Myself" sees himself in the poem. Whitman's choice of imagery suggests that it is in everyday life that democracy exists, that on attention to the moment of existence (any moment} reveals a universality. Finally, Whitman identifies himself with all he observes: What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me. Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns, Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me. "Song of Myself" is an appeal to the common man, to see himself in the poem, to see himself in all. In a 1962 interview with the Paris Review Williams remarks on the importance of rhythm in his poetry. His career was a search for an idiom that is a distinct reflection of the American pattern or style of speech. (159-185) His early poems, such as those found in Spring and All, lack traditional metre, but still convey to the reader a sense of rhythm. In the Avenue of Poplars, Williams writes, "He who has kissed/ a leaf/ need look no further-/I ascend/ through/ a canopy of leaves/and at the same time/I descend/for I do nothing unusual . . ." (228-9). The rhythm of this is subtle and beautiful; it exists but is essentially invisible to the reader. In other words, the rhythm is not so pronounced as to imply artificial structure (as in iambic pentameter, for instance). This poem exhibits what Williams called the variable foot - its meter varies in order to be true to speech. According to Williams, a poet must escape the "complicated ritualistic forms designed to separate the work from 'reality' - such as rhyme, meter as meter and not as the essential of the work, one of its words" (l89). Williams' meter suggests a clarity and preciseness of though...
