Listen to the audio clip of Poem 1 from "Song of Myself." Then read the text.
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from "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman
1
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loaf and invite my soul,
I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood,
form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
How does the audio version affect the experience of reading the poem?
A. The lack of rhyme and meter in the poem highlights Whitman's disdain for conformity and tradition.
B. The patterns and beats in the lines of the poem mirror and celebrate rhythms found in nature.
C. The unsteady rhythm of the poem emphasizes the detachment humans feel from one another.
D. The pauses between lines of the poem clarify the speaker is distancing himself from the audience.
