Hi CUNY Whitman scholars,

Here at UMW we’ve been finding poems that mention or respond to Whitman.  This poem doesn’t do so directly, but it focuses on a love of Brooklyn that may resonate with your readings now:

“On Leaving Brooklyn”

after Psalm 137

If I forget thee

let my tongue forget the songs

it sang in this strange land

and my heart forget the secrets

only a stranger can learn.

____

Borough of churches, borough of crack,

if I forget how ailanthus trees sprout

on the rooftops, how these streets

end in water and light,

let my eyes grow nearsighted.

____

Let my blood forget

the map of its travels

and my other blood cease

its slow tug toward the sea

if I do not remember,

____

if I do not always consider thee

my Babylon, my Jerusalem.

–Julia Kasdorf, from Eve’s Striptease