I CAN'T believe that I haven't yet posted anything by Walt Whitman. He just happens to be one of my favorite poets of all time! Jeez. What was I thinking?
Whitman is, in my opinion, the most influential and well known American poet. A decade after Emerson wrote "The Poet," calling for an original, American poet--someone who spoke for and of this country--Whitman answered his call with his first publication of Leaves of Grass. The first edition consisted of 12 poems; the collection was Whitman's life's work and, by it's 8th edition, it had grown to a little less than 400 poems. At the time of its publication, Leaves of Grass was criticized (when it wasn't being overlooked) for its use of free verse as well as for it's obscenity (Whitman is very frank about sexuality and celebrates the pleasures of the body).
If you want to learn more about Walt, first pick up a copy of Leaves of Grass (soooo do it! It will change your life!) and then read Walt Whitman: A Life, Justin Kaplan's National Book Award-winning biography of the poet.
Now, here's a taste of what WW has to say. The following is an excerpt from his preface to Leaves of Grass. Enjoy!
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the rich fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body...
3 comments:
he was a great poet... unmatched ... but unfortunately he had alot of homo-erotic imagery in his poetry as well.
not that i'm faulting him for that..
The Calamus poems are especially homoerotic. I don't understand why you say "unfortunately."
The Calamus poems are especially homoerotic. I don't understand why you say "unfortunately."
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