What is one thing Whitman and Dickinson had in common?

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson both "broke the rules" of poetry, but they defied poetic tradition in different ways. Walt Whitman primarily used a free verse style. He abandoned the rhythm and meter of traditional verse forms and wrote in sentences that used the rhythms of natural speech. Most of his works did not use traditional rhyme schemes and often didn't rhyme at all.  Emily Dickinson, on the other hand, retained the rhythm and meter that poets typically used, often writing in a common ballad form. However, she defied other conventions of poetry, especially by plentiful use of slant rhyme--words that don't exactly rhyme but almost do. She also used unconventional capitalization and punctuation. She capitalized words seemingly at random and frequently punctuated lines with dashes, helping to break up the consistent rhythm and meter of her stanzas. By breaking new ground in poetry, both Whitman and Dickinson displayed individualism in their work and strongly influenced changes in poetry that would mark the 20th century.