I Hear America Singing / I, Too

I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman

• Walt Whitman is the author of this poem.
• His first book of poems was Leaves of Grass.
• This poem celebrates individuality and speaks of blue collar workers as the country's backbone.
• These American workers sing joyously because they can be individuals who can work and choose what they want to do.
• They sing during their jobs because they're free to choose what they want to do and make a better life.
• They sing with open mouths, loudly and with great happiness.
• They sing strongly (with passion) because they're happy to be in America.
• He calls the songs 'carols' because the word has a positive connotation (happy).
• This is in a period before the war, so he highlights jobs like mechanic (works on firearms), carpenter, mason (construction-worker), boatman (trader/fisher), woodcutter, ploughboy, and even a mother or wife.
• He contrasts day and night, they're different.
• Work in the day, party in the night.
• The poem is written in free verse.

I, Too by Langston Hughes

• Langston Hughes is the author of this poem.
• As an African American, he writes about his background, which was underrepresented in literature at the time. 
• He was one of the leading poets of the Harlem Renaissance.
• In I, Too, Hughes responds to Whitman's I Hear America Singing.
• Similar diction, use of word "sing"
• Shared theme (workers in America)
• His repeated use of 'I' shows the poem is about the speaker's perspective.
• He, as an African-American, is also America, because he works and contributes to then nation.
• He's an individual, and re-celebrated the individuality Whitman references.
• His attitude is:
• hopeful
• confident
• positive
• NOT angry
• NOT resentful
• assertive
• He is enjoying life and growing strong.
• The first and last stanza show he is also grateful to be in America.
• African Americans, along with the people who Whitman addresses, collectively make up America.