Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry is a poem by Walt Whitman that demonstrates commuters’ journeys in their daily lives. The poem is written on the narrator’s perspective, a man who uses a ferry to cross across the sea for his daily activities. The poet also addresses the audience based on the use of the common human experience of life. The use of the first-person narrative to address the reader helps in picturing the narrator’s daily events (Whitman, 1820). The approach helps in understanding the relevance of seeing the human experience in the eyes of the narrator. The aspect of being addressed directly by the narrator also helps me understand what is happening in the poem.

The narrator addresses the issues and scenarios common to humans during the sea passage using the ferry. For instance, the poem states, “I too lived – Brooklyn, of ample hills, was mine; I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters around it.” The quote indicates that the narrator has lived in both cities, and he has experienced what others in the city are used to in their daily lives (Whitman, 1820). The approach of addressing the audience directly has facilitated understanding the first experience with the narrator. Reading the poem and being addressed directly has elevated the narrator’s emotion based on the purpose of the sonnet towards the audience. The process of reading develops a picture that clings to the mind and picturing the live events of a traveller across the seas in Brooklyn. Also, being addressed by the narrator has changed the perspective of interpretation of the poem. The poem has become interesting as it unfolds verse by verse. Therefore, the elements of addressing the audience directly have improved the understanding of the misconception of the hardness of poetry.