Although they wrote in completely different styles and considered similar themes in alternative ways, they both ran the risk of breaking down the traditional boundaries that previously defined poetry. Walt Whitman grew up without many boundaries and traveled across the United States encountering new people, places, and important events that shaped the nation's identity. All this shows why he wrote freely and unrestrictedly and why he wrote about the topics he dealt with. Emily Dickinson lived the most opposite life to Whitman when she became a hermit and wrote poetry in seclusion. His conservative, religious and solitary life shows in his poetry as it is more from an observational perspective, and the structure and flow is so clean and correct. Despite their different senses of writing, Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman helped create the movement toward modern American poetry, and their poems are still held in high regard..