Who was Walt Whitman before Walt Whitman was Walt Whitman?

[bluepressure]

I mostly agree about the forced rhyming, but I don't think it hurts to have some in as well. Even though the poem asks a serious question, I don't think it necessarily needs to be written that specific way. I'm really bad with names, so half of the authors you mentioned don't really mean anything to me. That would probably be the only disconnect I have with the poem, where this fault is largely on my ignorance. Unless it would really kill the sentence, I would like to see less-common rhymes though.

If for a moment we
forgot all we know
about Whitman, Frost,
Tennyson and Poe,

McCartney, Lennon,
Dylan and Simon,
Eyeda, Saul Williams
and Andre 3000.

If our heroes showed up
as poets unknown
and offered us seeds
as yet unsown; Think a period would work better than a semicolon.

How would we critique?
What would we say?
Would we suggest
a better way? A lot of questions. Are you able to word them differently, perhaps as not questions?

Would we realize
the way it would go?
When we first read them
would we know?

Around us each day
in these  threads  we entwine
are destinies poets Typo already mentioned in previous comments.
awaiting their time.

We have the dream,
though obscure it may be.
Perhaps it is you.
Perhaps it is me. Maybe Or could it be me?