Everything Is Awesome (and We Do Mean Everything)
Reading a Walt Whitman poem is like coming across the most enthusiastic encyclopedia entry you've ever read. The guy wasn't a goof, nor was he pointlessly happy, but his poems were packed with an intense enthusiasm for… well, pretty much everything he could slap his eye on. Whether he's celebrating his country, his history, or just himself, Whitman uses long lines, lots of anaphora, and a heaping helping of exclamation marks to communicate just how into his subjects he is—and just how into them you should be, too.