Can you interpret the poem Had I the Choice by Walt Whitman?I am taking a class where we have to analyze it and tell if it contains similes,...

The language of imagery is present in Whitman's poem.
 Driving from the subjective sense of self, Whitman is able to construct a realm where
he is able to link the personal experience with an external conception of self, aided by
figurative language as a way of re-describing the internal consciousness.  There is not
much in way of direct simile or comparative language.  Yet, Whitman is able to draw upon
the metaphor of the writer as a part of an intertextual connection to past artists.
 Whitman creates the idea that literature is a book of different artists representing
different parts of it and in employing the images of Shakespeare, Tennyson, or Homer, he
is suggesting that all literature is linked to one another.  He personifies each writer
with a description of their subject.  Homer is personified with wars and warriors,
Shakespeare is linked to personal torment, while Tennyson is embodied by "fair ladies."
 In being able to link each writer to a particular concept, Whitman is able to employ
language descriptive of that writer and reflect a part that he, himself, would wish to
have.  In the end, if the choice is between technical skill or emotional connection with
each, Whitman advocates for the latter in pure subjective
expression.