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