Whittier is a poet I've come to know largely through Dover, where his maternal grandparents and an uncle and cousins on his father's side lived. His parents in fact, married in our Quaker meetinghouse.
His poems aren't about himself but rather a greater faithfulness. While he's self-effacing, many of his works are deeply felt political and social protests that remain biting and land on-target.
Despite the seeming simplicity of his rhyming form, his lines are sharp. When you read his poems, don't stop at the end of the line but keep moving onward as a full-sentence thought. There you can breathe. Robert Frost follows in Whittier's footsteps.
His poem, "How the Women Went from Dover," commemorates an important event that appears in my Quaking Dover as well.
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