Cum on and check out my paper on Raunchy Whitman!

Poetically, both (1855-1860) Whitman and (1940s-1950s) Williams’ focus on the elemental self, the particulars, the details, the Romantic, and the beautiful. The reader looks through the poem as a microscope, narrowing in on individual blades of grass rather than an entire field or lawn:

“And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves” (Whitman 31).

“The file sharp grass… and a grasshopper of red basalt, boot-long” (Williams 277).

These lines, like many others, could be inserted interchangeably into Whitman’s or Williams’ poems without any break in poetic style, form, or content. Williams even riffs on Whitman’s parenthetical asides, inserting his own voice and creating the same intimacy that Whitman achieves in his poetry. Take for instance this side comment in Williams’ “The Delineaments of the Giants”:

“The river comes pouring in above the city

And crashes from the edge of the gorge

In a recoil of spray and rainbow mists—

(What common language to unravel?

.  . combed into straight lines

from that rafter of a rock’s lip.)

A man like a city and a woman like a flower…” (262).

This follows typical Whitmanic formula. First, the depiction of beautiful and powerful nature—I don’t think I need to remind you of all the instances of the sea, ocean, and rivers in Whitman’s poetry. The parenthetical aside that follows questions the metaphysical underpinning and muses on the deeper meaning of the previous image (not to mention the classic 1855 Whitmanic ellipsis thrown in there as well).  Lastly, Williams’ makes the move from natural world to humanity, equalizing the beauty of Man to that of the previous “rainbow mists.” If I didn’t already know this passage was from a Williams’ poem, I would have confidently identified Whitman as the author. If the similar structure and subject matter isn’t enough to confuse you, Whitman and Williams even make similar word choices in their poetry. Each combines fluid, aesthetic, and relatively simple words with a more sophisticated, Latinate vocabulary. Despite all these similarities in Williams’ work to Whitman’s, Williams’ is far from a copy cat.

The most significant parallelism between Whitman and Williams is how their rare and innovative existence within their own times. Both poets seem to come from nowhere, creating poetry the likes of which their contemporaries had never seen before. The 1855 Leaves of Grass was a non sequitur amongst mid-19^th century poetry and planted the seed for poetic trends to follow, most importantly the use of free verse as the official “American” poetic style. Like Whitman, William Carlos Williams served as a poetic catalyst for the imagist movement in the early 20^th century (see: “The Red Wheelbarrow”). He even invented what became known as the variable foot, which is based off the condensed and simplified linguistic trends Williams’ observed in American society, i.e. newspaper headlines and radio announcements. Like Whitman’s innovations, Williams’ stylistic influence can be seen decades later (See: Jane Hirshfield’s “Red Scarf”). Even though Whitman preceded Williams, both poets contribute their own unique layer to the ancient and ever-changing poetic palimpsest (shout out to Dr. Scanlon!).

With all that in mind, what I find more impressive about Whitman’s legacy as opposed to Williams’ is the sheer number of writers who mimicked Whitman in one way or another. In Higgins article, it’s almost like Whitman is more than one man. Whitman’s work contains such multitudes that he has produced several legacies. William Carlos Williams may mirror the individualistic Whitman, but Pablo Neruda channels Whitman’s idea of “en-masse,” and  T.S. Eliot evokes Whitman by being the Anti-Whitman. This is perhaps the most impressive aspect of Whitman, that even post-mortem he contains multitudes.

*Wardrobe provided by the University of Mary Washington.

I am beside myself with excitement to finally be able to discuss my favorite Walt Whitman poem of all time. O Me! O Life! is the perfect example of Papa Walt’s wisdom. Many of you might remember this scene from the movie Dead Poets Society, in which Robin Williams’ character uses this poem (abbreviated in the movie) to inspire teenage boys to study poetry. Papa Walt would have approved of this, because within the poem he presents a student/teacher dialogue.

The poem is divided into two parts with two different speakers: the first is spoken by the student/ the son / the youth, followed by a response by the answerer / the teacher / the father figure. The youth questions what is the “good” of life when it’s often filled with foolish and faithless people, and daily routines and struggles forever renewed; to which the older and wiser speaker responds calmly:

“That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse” (410).

The first speaker speaks from the thick of life, whereas the second speaker comes from a more objective point of view—as one “beyond” life. Not that the second speaker is a ghost, but rather someone who has experienced and come out the other side of what the first speaker recounts. Even though the answerer is older and wiser, they give value to the questioner. By responding with the direct address “you,” the second speaker emphasizes the first speaker’s importance in the large, consuming world.

This poem could also be read as Papa Walt’s address to his former, younger self. The first section mirrors his 1855 writing style with its many “O”s, exclamation and question marks, repeated line beginnings, and verbose detail; whereas the answer portion is short, “seriously” punctuated,” and makes a broader statement, all of which are tell-tale signs of the more mature Walt Whitman. While the younger Walt zeros in on specificities and uses many words to do so, Papa Walt squeezes more profundity into fewer words (notice how Walt’s shorter poems do not emerge until after 1855). Within this one poem, Whitman reflects on his current and former self, and many “verses” he has contributed.

Though there is a greater focus on death in the 1891-1892 edition of Leaves, which is, of course, sad, there is still a sense of optimism in Whitman’s writing. There is never death without the reflection on life. Even his most morbid poems like The Last Invocation, Life and Death, and Good-Bye my Fancy! include reflections on love, the soul, and life. Papa Walt inspires us in his old age to live a life as full and passionate as his own. And Papa Walt knows what’s best.

“O I see life is not short, but immeasurably long,

I henceforth tread the world chaste, temperate, an early riser, a steady grower,

Every hour the semen of centuries, and still of centuries.

I must follow up these continual lessons of the air, water, earth,

I perceive I have no time to lose” (380).

We know now a great deal about his personal life through his letters, Memoranda, information given to us by our pals Reynolds, Morris, and Erkkila, but there still remains a void. Whitman, containing multitudes, is not easily pieced together. His poetry, though we can only speculate, reveals some thing deeper than biographical information. Through the evolution of his poems, we see the evolution of the man himself– an edited poem flows from an edited mind. Song of Myself, even within its title, serves as Whitman’s mirror, and the changes that occur within the poem over 36 years reveal much about the mindset of our beloved poet not long before his death. What was even more revealing to me, however, were not the things that changed over three decades, but what stayed the same.

Within the first stanza of the 1891 version of Song of Myself, Whitman immediately makes an edit, reminding the reader that this is a different poem from a different man:

“My tongue, every atom of blood, form’d from this soil, this air,

Born here of parents born here of parents the same, and their parents the same,

I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,

Hoping to cease not till death” (188).

Whitman was, of course, not thirty-seven years old when he made this revision. Instead he reminds us of from where and who the poem originates; Song of Myself is birthed from vitality, from youth, and not from the current state of the writer at the time (nearing death). With the following line, Whitman links his thirty-seven year old self with his current self, knowing that he has achieved the “hope” of his younger self. With this, Whitman re-writes Song of Myself reflectively, and we read it reflectively. Whitman desires and challenges the reader to see the meaning behind his editing.

We have discussed at length the concept of “en masse” and its significance to Whitman, i.e. his philosophy of the American identity, unity through diversity, and comradeship, and it’s no surprise that “en masse” has become capitalized (literally) in Whitman’s writing after 36 years of theorizing it. Along with the capitalization, Whitman describes “En-Masse” as, “without flaw, it alone rounds and completes all, / that mystic baffling wonder along completes all” (210); whereas in 1855, he defines “en-masse” as, “a word of the faith that never balks,/ One time as good as another time…. here or henceforth it is all the same to me” (49). His attitude towards “En-Masse” shifts from a favorable, yet semi-apathetic one, to something he exaggerates passionately about. Whitman couples “En-Masse” with a thought on reality. In 1855 he submits a “word of reality” (49), and in 1891 he “accepts Reality and dare not question it” (210).  Reality, capitalized like En-Masse, has become a force worth recognition, something he must  submit to; for Whitman to set aside something (anything!) that he will not question, reveals the reverence he has developed for Reality. We, of course, know the reality that Whitman will meet one year later.

Despite the fact that Whitman is ailing in 1891 and nearing death, he maintains his optimistic, almost flippant, remarks about death. The 1891 SOM asserts, just as the 1855 version, that life springs from death, that death is nothing to fear: “And as to you death, and you bitter hug of mortality… it is idle to try to alarm me” (85 and 245). The only difference within these lines about death is that in 1891 “death” is capitalized, as are “corpse” and “life.” So though Whitman maintains his same theory about life and death, but in 1891he pays more respect to their significance and presence. Some lines, however, do not change at all, not even in syntax or punctuation. Most notable of the unchanged lines are the very last 8 lines of the poem. At age 37 and at age 73, Whitman chooses to end his poem with the same enigmatic, enduring words. No matter his age, we will find him under our boot-soles.

“The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.”

and:

“Here is not merely a nation but a teeming nation of nations.”

and:

‘Here is action united from strings necessarily blind to particulars and details magnificently moving in vast masses.”

and:

“Here are the roughs and beards and space and ruggedness and nonchalance that the soul loves.”

and:

“Here the performance disdaining the trivial unapproached in the tremendous audacity of its crowds and groupings and the push of its perspective spreads with crampless and flowing breadth and showers its prolific and splendid extravagance.”

After reading through these “heres”, I couldn’t shake this feeling that I had read this some where else. Check out this stanza from “By Blue Ontario’s Shore”(1856, 1881):

“These states are the amplest poem,

Here is not merely a nation but a teeming Nation of nations,

Here the doings of men correspond with the broadest doings of the day and night,

Here is what moves in magnificent masses careless of particulars,

Here are the roughs, beards, friendliness, combativeness, the soul loves,

Here the flowing trains, here the crowds, equality, diversity, the soul loves.”

The poem pulls, almost verbatim, from the preface. Can someone plagiarize them self? Fanny Fern does advise in her article “Borrowed Light” to find a great writer and copy their writings as closely as possible, perhaps Whitman is just followed her advice and selected himself as a great writer. What do you guys make of this? Any more examples of Walt’s “recycled” words?

What unites the men is the “great Idea,” which Whitman refers to several times in “By Blue Ontario’s Shore.” Though Whitman states that the great Idea is the “mission of poets,” he defines the great Idea in national and political terms. First he places the great Idea within the context of war (it’s no mystery what war), then the great Idea becomes part of sweeping statement about unity and equality, and lastly he couples the bard of the great Idea with the bard of “peaceful inventions” (483). Here, Whitman hints the connection between a poet and a President; both the poet and the President, though one undoubtedly more powerful than the other, can have equally as great Ideas. He takes this poetical/political comparison one step further by asserting, “these States are the amplest poem” (471), describing the potential for great unity within the Nation, which was, of course, Lincoln’s primary objective. Similarly, both men look at the “Big Picture,” look toward the future, as motivation. Whitman writes, “O days of the future I believe in you” (474), which mirrors in a more concise, poetic way Lincoln’s closing words in the Gettysburg Address: “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Lincoln’s use of the future tense and words like “new birth” are no accident, both Whitman and Lincoln saw past the grim present and towards a brighter future, knowing well that the war was justified.

Though our Good Grey Poet most certainly felt connected with Lincoln, I doubt the two could have ever been friends; not because of their differing status in society, but because Walt Whitman placed Lincoln on a higher plane of existence than himself, almost deifying him. Countless times in both his poetry and prose, Whitman refers to Lincoln as a martyr, which perhaps he was, but Whitman elevates Lincoln’s martyrdom to hyperbolic, Christ-like proportions. In “This Dust Was Once The Man,” Whitman describes the South’s attempted succession from the Union as, “the foulest crime in history known in any land or age” (468), and that Lincoln saved, single-handedly, the Union from this most heinous injustice.  Aside from the ridiculousness of the first assertion (I mean, come on, the Spanish Inquisition was much worse), Whitman has made Lincoln the savior of Union. Even in his assassination, something not of Lincoln’s control at all, Whitman paints Lincoln as the critical element in America’s identity. In his lecture Whitman drives this point home over and over again: “strange (is it not?) that battles, martyrs, agonies, blood, even assassination, should so condense– perhaps only really, lastingly condense– a Nationality” (1070). Lincoln, like Christ in Christianity, becomes the fountainhead of a new nation– the first great Martyr Chief, as Whitman calls him.

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint the bond between Whitman and Lincoln. However, I think the love Whitman feels for him is far deeper than the “crush” we joke about in class (even though Whitman likes Lincoln’s tan face quite a bit). Whitman recognized that he himself was a great man and in Lincoln he saw another great man, and maybe that’s all there is to it.

The origins of ice cream are mysterious. There’s documentation of people flavoring snow hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, but that’s really more of a primative snow cone than ice cream. Some might place its beginning during the reign of Nero (54-68 CE), because the famous Emperor enjoyed a frozen, sweetened combination of ice and fruit pulp, but of course that’s technically sherbet, not ice cream (Powell 12). Sherbet and other iced treats were around Europe for centuries until slowly emerged the addition of cream to the mixture. No one person is attributed to this discovery, but the first official recipe for ice cream was published by Nicholas Lemery in 1674 (Powell 26). By 1768, according to ice cream historian and expert, Marilyn Powell, the age of ice cream was under way (28).

But wait! Perhaps it’s not that simple and European! Myth has it that Marco Polo observed the Mongols making ice cream in China and then brought the recipe back with him to Italy. Though Marco Polo does not write explicitly of ice cream, he does, however, document drinking a fermented milk product called kumiss, which the T’ang rulers of China would enjoy mixed with rice and frozen. It seems as though the lines of this poem by Yang Wanli, c. 1200 BCE, describe ice cream:

It looks so greasy but still has crisp texture,

It appears congealed yet seems to float,

Like jade, it breaks at the bottom of the dish;

As with snow, it melts in the light of the sun.

(Powell 32).

There is, however, no concrete evidence of ice cream in China, nor are Marco Polo’s writings of China held in high regard (there are questions as to if he ever actually made it there). Where ever and how ever it emerged, ice cream did not truly “hit the scene” until the 18th century, and not long after gaining popularity in Europe, ice cream made the trans-Atlantic jump to the United States.

The Founding Fathers loved ice cream. While he was the ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson grew a bit of an obsession with ice cream, going as far as employing a chef in Paris who would make vanilla ice cream for him. Jefferson even created his own recipe for making vanilla ice cream, which actually does not even list vanilla as an ingredient (Powell 158). George Washington  insisted on having ice cream on the White House menu, and years later Dolley Madison served it at the Inauguration dinner in 1813 (Powell 160). Don’t let these prominent white people fool you, the circulation and perpetuation of ice cream in American was solely because of African Americans. In fact, legend has it that Dolley Madison got her recipe for the Inauguration dinner from Aunt Sallie Shadd, a free black woman from Delaware who many believed to the “inventor” of ice cream. Augustus Jackson, a free black man, was a cook in the White House and after leaving his job there and moving to Philidelphia, began distributing his ice cream to street vendors, who were also mostly African American (Powell 161). These street vendors brought ice cream to the American public, often shouting slogans like, “I Scream Ice Cream” in 1828, which later morphed into, “I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream for ICE CREAM” in 1927 (Powell 162). Needless to say, by the time the Civil War began in 1861, ice cream had already been a part of the American diet for over 80 years and established itself as slogan-worthy treat.

Though Whitman had access to treats like ice cream and citrus fruits, these things were not prevalent during the Civil War. In her article, “Hard as the Hubs of Hell: Crackers in War,” Joy Santlofer discusses the diet of the Civil War soldier. Hard bread, or hard tack, was the staple food item during the war. This bread was so hard that it had to be shattered by a riffle or a sharp rock and then soaked in a liquid before eating, and more often than not, it housed maggots. This is what the soldiers ate every day. To break up the monotony of their diet, soldiers would add the hard bread to their coffee or stew (Santlofer 5). The reasoning behind this unfortunate diet was, of course, the lack of food preservation methods. The newest food  technology was canning, sweetened condensed milk became a hot commodity amongst the soldiers (Santlofer 3). Canned food, dried and salted meats, and hard bread were primarily the only food items that could be kept and transported during the Civil War. So how was it possible for ice cream to exist in the summer heat of Virginia in the 1860s?

This question is not easily answered. Though there were forms of refrigeration by the 1860s, food preservation was still in its primitive stage. The ice box, literally an insulated box with a block of ice on the top shelf, were the most common in cold food storage. Though an ice box could store the cream and eggs used to make ice cream, it would have not been cold enough to store ice cream. A break through in food preservation was made in 1861 by Enoch Piper in Camden, Maine, when he patented a method of freezing a fish by coating it in ice and then moving it into an ice box with chilled brine of ice and salt (Rudi, “How We Got Frozen Food”). Of course we know that the addition of salt creates a lower temperature for various chemical reasons that no one cares to read about. Enoch Piper might have received the official patent for this discovery but this was already common knowledge to those making ice cream. Even in Thomas Jefferson’s recipe for ice cream, which I referenced earlier, instructs to layer salt with ice around the sabotiere. The ice cream was mixed in the sabotiere and left for a several hours in a combination of salt and ice to freeze before serving. Here’s an image that will help clarify– the sabotiere is the smaller container within the bucket, the empty space between the sabotiere and the bucket would have been filled with salt and ice.

www.historicfoods.com

It was common practice in the 19th century to place half-frozen ice cream, what we would call “soft serve” now, into a mold and then let the ice cream continue to freeze inside the mold (Powell 160).  It’s doubtful this would have been done for the soldiers, however, because this was usually done for fancy dinner parties and special occasions. It is also unlikely that these reasonably sized sabotieres were used to feed an entire army. Here enters Jacob Fussell to save the day. Jacob Fussell established the first commercial ice cream plant in Baltimore in 1851, and supplied the Union troops with ice cream throughout the war by using refrigerated rail cars (Powell 163). Other smaller scale modes of ice cream production, i.e. making the ice cream on sight, were also used to feed the soldiers, but Fussell’s factory sent out a majority of the ice cream consumed during the Civil War.

Fussell began the tradition of ice cream as an American military staple. During World War II, the U.S. Navy produced 10 gallons of ice cream per second for its sailors (Powell 163). Ice cream, though it does not originate from The United States, has become synonymous with the United States. During times of international war, other countries have watched Americans eat the stuff (literally) by the gallons. Even though ice cream exists in dozens of other nations, only in the United States has it become linked to patriotism through its historic military ties, perhaps explaining why America is currently the greatest producer and consumer of ice cream. So not only is ice cream tasty, but it’s downright American!

Powell, Marilyn. Ice Cream: The Delicious History. New York: The Overlook Press, 2005. Print.

Santlofer, Joy. “‘Hard as the Hubs of Hell’: Crackers in War.” Food, Culture & Society: Wilson Web 10 (2007): 191-209. 13 October 2009.

Volti, Rudi. “How We Got Frozen Food.” Invention and Technology Magazine. American Hertiage. Web. 18 October 2009.

1.) He is an optimist. I discussed this in my last post and now it has been officially confirmed  by Ellen Calder (*pats self on back*).

2.) He desires and is driven by intimacy.

3.) He is, without a doubt, gay. Gay as the day is long.

Of all the other unencumbered facets of the Good Grey Poet’s being, I can only offer inklings and educated guesses, but of these three things I am positive. Since Whitman’s optimism is old news,  I will delve into my discovery of the latter two of these certainties.

In his letters, no matter the recipient, Whitman will often begin with some statement like, “it is a comfort to write home, even if I have nothing in particular to say” (42), or, “I have nothing of consequence to write” (107), and then launch into multiple pages of recounting his current conditions and most recent experiences. Long-winded details are to be expected in letters to his immediate family, but his letters to his sister-in-law, Martha, his friend, Hugo Fritsch, and even to his contemporary, Ralph Waldo Emerson, express the same level of intimacy as those to his own mother. His letters, both in their content and quantity, express his eagerness for people to know him; his opening lines of, “oh I don’t have much to talk about BUT,” are a classic sign of someone who has a whole lot to say and desires the full attention and participation of the receiver (we all have a friend who does this). Whitman is not self-centered, however, he puts all this information out in hopes of receiving the same amount back. He impatiently urges his recipients to respond; even to Emerson, some one he’s not all that close with, he says, “answer me by the next mail, for I am waiting here like a ship for the welcome breath of wind” (41). Calder speaks often of the long conversations that would occur in the presence of Whitman, which further convinced me of Whitman as both a hungry contributor and consumer of information. Calder easily shares intimate details of Whitman– specific lines of poetry he would recite, certain words he liked, little sayings of his, etc.– and though we cannot know for certain, I am sure than Whitman could have just as easily shared intimate details about Ellen Calder. Intimacy is in the details, and Whitman is fueled by details. As a nurse, he picked up on preferences of certain soldiers; Morris shares how Whitman discovered that patients with a fever enjoyed the scent of lemons, and would carry around an array of “goodies” to fulfill each unique need. Whitman longs to connect with anyone who will act as recipient, be it a reader he knows personally, a reader he has never met (perhaps one in the year 2009, sitting at her laptop), a close friend, a wounded soldier, or Tom Sawyer, to whom Whitman wants to give something extra special.

No matter what Reynolds’ might claim in “Calamus’ Love,” Walt Whitman was a homosexual. Period. Reading his letters to Tom Sawyer, you would have to be utterly dense to not recognize that Whitman was infatuated, if not in love, with this soldier: “I hope we shall yet meet, as I say, if you feel as I do about it– and if [it] is destined that we shall not, you have my love none the less, whatever should keep you from me, no matter how many years” (57). As Tom continues ignoring Whitman, Whitman takes on a tone of love-sick desperation: “Do you wish to shake me off? That I cannot believe, for I have the same love for you that I exprest in my letters last spring & I am confident you have the same for me” (93). Really, Walt, you think so? Poor guy. What truly set me over the edge were Whitman’s comments about marriage to Ellen Calder. He expresses that marriage is not for him, that he does not envy a man’s wife but envies his children. In this moment, I pitied Whitman. Whitman does not desire a wife, because he cannot intimately connect with women–any woman– but he does crave a family. Of course, having two Dads was not exactly an option in 1865, so here sits Whitman fawning over Tom Sawyer and yearning for a genuine partnership and family that he knows he will never have. It’s no wonder that Whitman’s favorite lines to recite in Ellen Calder’s home were about the agony of unrequited love. Despite all his attempts at intimacy, Whitman will never know in his lifetime the fullest, greatest form of intimacy that he so desperately longs for. What results is a hopeless grasping for connection to all those around him, both inspiring and depressing.

Reading Drum Taps there were two poems in particular that seemed non sequitur to me, City of Ships and Give Me the Splendid Sun. Next to these two poems I have scribbled excitedly “old school Walt” in pencil, feeling refreshed by the return of “O”s, exclamation marks, repetition, and lines like, “O such for me! O an intense life, full to repletion and varied!” (447). Even surrounded by death and violence, Whitman continues to muse about all the differing beauties between nature and the city. It’s almost as if these poems are his own personal escape, his “me” time, if you will. Some times he even takes a breather within the same poem, some of his more macabre poems contain their own, small “old school Walt” moments. For instance, in The Wound-Dresser, there are intermittent intermissions amongst the strenuous listing of a nurse’s duty to proclaim, “O maidens and young men I love and love me” (443), and then closes the poem with this sentiment, “(many a soldier’s loving arms about this neck have cross’d and rested, many a soldier’s kiss dwells on these bearded lips)” (445).  No matter the circumstance, Walt always seems to make time to appreciate the men around him… especially when they’re dusty.

Walt Whitman was a lover, not a fighter (I’m full of cliches today!); his passion for the masculine form and sensuality may not be as raw and zealous as it is in 1855, but it is undoubtedly present in Drum Taps. My personal favorite man-crush moment takes place within a set of parenthesis in First O Songs for a Prelude: “how good they look as they tramp down to the river, sweaty, with their guns on their shoulders!” (417). Here, also, is where he first divulges his minor dust fetish. All dust aside, these brief sensual and/or loving moments serve as a glimpse into momentary humanizing instances, however short-lived or fleeting or perhaps mentally constructed they might have been. There is also that sense perhaps Walt might have optimistically said to himself one day while watching sweaty, dusty men march past, “well, war is awful and I’m exhausted… but check out those hotties!”

I’m half kidding, of course.

Whitman seems to take war, digest it, and spit it back out optimistically. Reynolds comments that Whitman was such a unique war poet because he did not often express partisanship. To avoid partisanship in any war, let alone the Civil War, is difficult for the author and  frustrating to readers. However, more important to Whitman than politics was the “big picture” and his role in putting the pieces of America together (explaining why he was so enamored with Lincoln). The Civil War provided a force that could have never been generated by one man or one book of poems, and Whitman seems pleased to simply be a part of the progress. Even the most sorrowful times, Whitman’s songs remain triumphant.

Our first stop was the battle ground on Sunken Rd, which was the site of an extremely bloody massacre of Union soldiers. The geography of Marye Heights gave the Confederates at easy victory, despite the fact the Union had more troops and had been stationed in Fredericksburg longer. However, none of this is really that interesting, lets be honest. Far more interesting was the wedding party taking photographs nearby as we commented on their ironic existence in the space. Where thousands upon thousands of men were killed 150 years ago, now hosted a group of well dressed young adults smiling, laughing, and embarking on new life. I believe it was Professor Brady who made the Whitman reference saying something like, “how Whitmanic, new life springing from a place of death.”  Then later, Professor Groom alluded to “This Compost!” The foul meat that perhaps remained beneath the shiny leather shoes and high heels of the wedding party, reminding us that the Earth, “grows such sweet things out of such corruptions.”

Chatham House, formerly known as The Lacy House, was our next stop. This was where Whitman spent time nursing wounded soldiers. The house is beautiful, though one room was painted in an off-putting Pepto Bismal pink color, and the grounds surrounding the property are perfectly manicured and stunning. Again, the irony played within my mind. Where hospital tents had stood before, now grows flowers and grape vines.  We watched the informational DVD on a flat screen TV in the room that had formerly been the amputation room. The chasm between the past in the present seems alienating and inescapable. However, there was a specific moment when that chasm was bridged (perhaps like the pontoon bridge built by the Federals over the Rappahannock?), and when we all experienced something tangible in 2009 that Whitman experienced in the 1860s.

Still standing outside the Chatham house are the two tangled Catalpa trees where Whitman saw a pile of amputated limbs. The trees are directly outside the windows of the amputation room. Our tour guide was kind enough to read Whitman’ words about the trees. It seemed a sobering moment for everyone as we all realized that this was the “closest” we have been to Whitman so far; we connected his words to our physical surroundings. After this moment, I found myself looking around with new eyes, wondering if Washington, Lincoln, and of course Whitman, looked over the Rappahannock River and Fredericksburg as I was at the same time of day, on the same day of the year, many years ago. Maybe that’s nerdy… but we were all a little bit nerdy today.

“One of the marks of any great writer is adaptability, and Whitman, after a few short days in camp among the young Northern soldiers, had already begun to grasp that his old enthusiastic style of writing was sadly unsuited for capturing the grim realities of their war. A new approach was needed, one that reflected more accurately the soldiers’ homespun ways and quiet courage. With his great gift for mimicry, Whitman would write poems that spoke in the drawling voices of the men themselves, in accents he first heard around the campfires at Fredericksburg. This was a new way of  writing, not just for Whitman but for American literature in general, and its importance can be scarcely overstated” (61).

Wow. Where was Roy Morris last week? I cannot even attempt to disagree with anything in this quotation. Morris reiterates Whitman’s unique, almost alien, existence in the 19th century, creating something new, beautiful, and inconceivable all at the same time. My passion for Whitman is renewed; my image of him  as a raw, brilliant, zealous, slightly obsessive artist lives on. *sigh of relief*

Okay, enough of that.

What I found most interesting about this week’s reading regarding documenting the war were the many parallels I could make to photography (a topic I now know much more about, thank you very much, Matthew Brady). Both the photographer and poet desire to document an experience rather than a statistic; both attempt to create an image (the photographer more obviously); both want to make something “real.” However, quite sadly, neither the photographer nor the poet will ever create that whole image, they struggle against the same infinite limitations of the tangible realm. Neither the poet nor the photographer can bottle up the scents of gunpowder and sweat, or contain the bursting, violent sounds of battle, or articulate the energy that surrounds them or the taste of the air that fills their mouth with each anxious breath. It cannot be done, by anyone, ever. Life is ephemeral, and for the artist that really freaking sucks.

This artistic frustration could lead to artistic surrender or artistic insatiability, and with Whitman I believe it’s the latter. Why would Whitman keep both an extensive journal, Specimen Days, and write dozens of poems, Drum Taps, if not to make every effort to wholly document the experience? With Specimen Days, Whitman shows us snapshots, gives us names, places, and dates, and a detailed account of both ordinary camp life and the chaotic buzz of the hospital. There is so much information in Specimen Days it’s hard to believe that the poems included in Drum Taps are not redundant. His poems voice the metaphysical, the intangible, the vague sensations that swim around our minds invisibly. I’m not a psychology major, but it seems as though Whitman uses two different parts of his brain to write his journal entries and his poems. Though some segments of his prose are equally as eloquent as his poetry, his poetry contains the energy of those little “lightening bolt” or “light bulb” moments that happen the moment a dream comes to an end. For instance, in the closing lines of “A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim,” the speaker compares the face of a dead soldier to that of Christ– a blasphemous claim made without apology. Never in Specimen Days is there such a bold metaphor, not even when Whitman talks about Abraham Lincoln (side note: how creepy was the part of Morris’ article when he revealed that Whitman was planning to write a fake dialogue between himself and Lincoln?!). With these two different documenting methods, Whitman does not attempt to reach different audiences, but the same audience in different ways.

To answer the question of “will the real war ever get in the books,” the answer for myself and Whitman is a resounding, thwarted NO. However, Whitman succeeds in giving feeling and “reality” to an occurrence, which might have otherwise been smothered with numbers and facts. Humanity lies within the details, the idiosyncrasies, the peccadilloes and simple joys, the little ice cream treats that a grey-bearded poet brings to wounded soldiers. Whitman lends the reader his own personal experience of the Civil War, and though it does not nearly encompass everything, it is sufficient.

One’s-Self I Sing serves as a perfect example of Whitman’s micro-managing. After reading the verbose, lengthy, vibrant, omniscient 1855 edition Song of Myself, One’s Self I Sing, which kicks off the 1867 edition, seems dull, didactic, and flavorless. Whitman makes his point too easily accessible to the reader, it’s almost too straightforward. Where is the the infinite regression we have come to know and love? For instance, this line, “my Days I sing, and the Lands,” 1855 Walt Whitman would have followed up with a detailed account of exactly what kind of days and in the specific places they occur (and we would have respectfully skimmed through the long listing of American states and towns). Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh, he does follow up with a classically Whitmanic “O” exclamation:

O friend, whoe’er you are, at last arriving hither to com-
mence, I feel through every leaf the pressure of
your hand, which I return. And thus upon our
journey link’d together let us go .

Here, the 1855 Whitman shows himself– he reveals the connection between self, other,  and nature eloquently and in a way that makes the reader stop and re-read. However, in the further edited version of this poem (1871), this verse is cut out completely, instead replaced by this bit:

Of life immense in passion, pulse, and power,

Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine,

The Modern Man I sing.

Despite his use of the words “passion” and “power,” this final impression is neither passionate nor powerful. The word “Modern” seems clumsy and awkward, too sterile to come from the man who wrote, “where the hummingbird shimmers… where the neck of the longlived swan swan is curving and winding” (61) in the 1855 Song of Myself. Perhaps it’s the romantic in me, but I don’t want Whitman to sing of “The Modern Man,” or of “The New World,” I much prefer to read about grass and sex and the soul, or all three at once. My personal preferences aside, however, this shows a certain shift in Whitman’s view of the world, which can only be explained by his experiences in The Civil War.

Luke Mancuso mentions in his article that the 1867 edition was the first to open up with an inscription that introduces the reader to the work and what to expect from it, almost like an abstract. The longer poems within this edition are divided up into numbered, digestible sections, so that the reader may flip ahead and predetermine exactly how much (or how little) they are willing to commit. Opening up the 1855 edition, on the other hand, is like stepping into a puddle when you’re not quite sure how deep it is. Perhaps it was all the chaos that surrounded Whitman during the war that caused him to crave organization and predictability within his own writing, or maybe he became accustomed to the military highly regimented order, but whatever it was, it’s evident that the war impacted Whitman as a person and as a poet.

I feel like this information would illuminate a lot from Calamus and Adam, and add a new level of intimacy and connection to The Man himself.

In two separate poems (From Pent-up Aching Rivers, and One Hour to Madness and Joy), Whitman uses the phrase “mystic deliria” to describe sex. In other words, Whitman likens sex to an otherworldly, perhaps metaphysical, lapse in sanity. It’s not much of a jump from “mystic deliria” to “disdaining  concessions,” Whitman describes sex as a dropping of pretense, disengaging the societal “face” we all put on and assuming our raw, animal one. The speaker of Are You The New Person Drawn Toward Me, challenges a potential lover with this question, “do you see no further than this facade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me?” What lies beneath the facade, the core identity of a person, is what the speaker wants his/her lover to see.  Much like sex itself, Whitman’s poetry celebrates and appreciates the body, recounting nearly every part, but actually divulges something much more significant than bones and freckles. With sex, there is a mingling of the physical and metaphysical, the soul is exposed through the tangible: “O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul, O I say now these are the soul” (258). Along with how the soul is explored through sex, Whitman even more frequently describes how the body and soul yearns and craves sex.

Words like “aching,” “consuming,” and “burning”  appear multiple times throughout Children of Adam and Calamus. These poems are dripping with yearning, and what is more indicative of the human condition than yearning? The speaker of Whitman’s poems is more than just horny, though that could easily be argued, he expresses an insatiable desire to connect and to know other humans, both men and women. In the short and simple I Am He that Aches with Love, the speaker compares his/her desire to attract and connect with others to a gravitational force– something powerful and natural. The urge to love another, to mingle with a soul that complements our own, is inherent to our being and therefore a vital part of the human soul. Not Heat Flames up and Consumes explores the soul’s tenacious search to find true connection, Whitman likens it to a tide that is constantly moving. From its very beginning, the soul searches for love: “any more than my soul is borne through the open air, wafted in all directions O love, for friendship, for you” (278). The body yearns, yes, but the soul yearns first and more deeply.

Quadroon: Someone of 1/4 Black ancestry. A term used in The South during the 19th century. This was during the time of Jim Crow laws and the “one drop” rule, in which anyone with any amount of Black ancestry was considered Black.

Jade, from America’s Next Top Model, had a biracial father and would have technically been defined as a “quadroon” in the 19th century. Now, she is considered a crazy, dramatic, whacko who totally made cycle 6 worth watching!

In more than one poem, though “Song of The Open Road” most notably, Whitman urges his reader to go out and explore America.  He boasts of America like it is a secret vacation destination that only celebrities know about: “Listen! I will be honest with you, I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes.” It’s almost as if he is saying, “why go to dilapidated Rome or dingy Athens, when you could go explore something that few people have ever seen before?” America is such a gem, in fact, that only the best and brightest should be allowed in: “only those may come who come in sweet and determin’d bodies, no diseas’d person, no rum-drinker or venereal taint is permitted here.” Despite this statement, Whitman is not an elitist, he praises the farmer, the lumberjack, the soldiers, the common man, because these make up the “rough new prizes” that America has to offer. America is begging to be experienced, to be discovered and cherished, and Whitman is using his poetry as a soap-box to proclaim this fact. There is more to Whitman’s message than  just traveling and sight-seeing; he yearns for each reader to realize that there is so much more to know than our small, individual spheres of influence : “to know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for travelling souls.” There is so much more than the several hundred faces we have memorized, or the many paths we have mapped out, or the countless schemas implanted in our brains. As much as we may think we know, there is always infinitely more. Whitman humbly suggests that we each make some sort of attempt to know more, to experience more, even if it is just one infinitesimal part of a gigantic whole.

Whitman sees the people of America as the colorful specks that make up a beautiful Monet painting. Each speck would appear meaningless on its own, but plays a vital role in creating the entire composition. Whitman states this outright in “Song of the Broad-Axe,” when he comments that great people are what makes a great city: “a great city is that which has the greatest men and women, if it be a few ragged huts it is still the greatest city in the whole world.” The buildings are secondary, according to Whitman, which perhaps explains why he describes the “landscape” of Manhattan and of Kentucky with the same fervor. There is debate about whether Whitman is a “city” poet or a “nature” poet, well I argue that he is a “people” poet. “Song of Occupations” alone could testify to that. Whitman worships Man, not God, and time and time again in his poetry emphasizes that it is common man that makes America a great nation: “where the citizen is always the head and ideal, and President, Mayor, Governor and what not, are agents for pay” (355). To Whitman, America is not a flag or a figure head, but a vibrant collection of souls and life.

Despite my assertion that the speaker is not a “person,” the first person is employed in the poem; “Me” and “I” are all over the place. This “Me” constantly defines itself as well as any other thing that could ever be defined. It proclaims: “I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself; they do not know how immortal, but I know.” There is no pretense here, the “Me” admits readily its omniscient presence, but does so humbly by asserting that “Me” is the, “commonest and cheapest.” With this, the speaker is both God and Man, the most profound of all contradictions. But who cares? “Me” certainly doesn’t.  In fact, the concluding thoughts address this issue, and quite proudly so: “do I contradict myself? Very well then…. I contradict myself; I am large…. I contain multitudes.” There is no sense in analyzing these contradictions, in trying to connect them to some sort of underlying theme, because each thought exists independently, each from its own organic moment, and if one happens to contradict another… oh well.

As both God and Man, the speaker, the force, the “Me,” shares with equally intimacy memories of personal experience, memories of foreign lands and foreign times, and memories of the Earth as a whole. There are thoughts of slaves, mechanics, farmers lovers, and other real, observable things. Seamlessly, however, there are also thoughts of brahmins, llamas, ancient Gods, the sun, the sky, the Earth, and the unknowable. And yet, despite these countless thoughts, the force declares there is so much more to know: “a few quadrillions of eras, a few octillions of cubic leagues, do not hazard the span, or make it impatient, they are but parts…. any thing is but a part.” Though “Me” appears to be limitless, it acknowledges its own limitations.

“Song of Myself,” as a work, mirrors the life that speaks through it. This poem is large, it does contain multitudes. More important and more striking, though, is how alive it is. How wonderful would it be to live in this poem? To exist in a world of such passion and beauty and feeling. Perhaps what makes Whitman so enviable is not his incredible talent, but that he did exist in such a world.