October 8th, 2009:

I mention earlier from an earlier post that I love music. Anything that deals with music I am drawn to. How it first starts off I was immediately drawn to it.

FIRST, O songs, for a prelude,
Lightly strike on the stretch’d tympanum, pride and joy in my city,
How she led the rest to arms–how she gave the cue,
How at once with lithe limbs, unwaiting a moment, she sprang;
(O superb! O Manhattan, my own, my peerless!
O strongest you in the hour of danger, in crisis! O truer than
steel!)
How you sprang! how you threw off the costumes of peace with
indifferent hand;
How your soft opera-music changed, and the drum and fife were heard
in their stead;
How you led to the war, (that shall serve for our prelude, songs of
soldiers,)
How Manhattan drum-taps led.(Whitman 416).

I am a very visual person and I can see all these moments as he talks about the city he loves. I have been to Manhattan and I must say it is as wonderful as he depicts it. It is almost as if he is playing the city as if New York is s huge instrument in an orchestra.

Here, watch this: Walt Whitman “O Captain My Captain” Animation

So I never new that this poem was about the death of Abraham “Slim” Lincoln.

O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up–for you the flag is flung–for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths–for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Sure, like most people, I’ve heard it before (it was a major plot point in The Dead Poet Society, a movie which, although thought provoking and enjoyable, influenced a generation of posers and wannabes much like Fight Club or that damned “Why So Serious?” line from Dark Knight, which was awesome in the movie, but when your nerdy friend won’t stop saying it, it kind of looses something, but I digress).
Maybe it was the over-use of the end scene of The Dead Poet Society where all the kids climb up on desks and wage a 5 minute protest before giving up and going back to their oh-so-comfortable status quo of trust funds, over-compensating, and wealthy, but distant, parents. Or maybe it was how the poem itself has been condensed into just the title, as merely making a reference to it seems to be as good as knowing all the lines by heart (again, I blame pompous wannabes and the DPS), but now that I know this poem is a final farewell to the first fallen President of the United States, a symbol of America itself, and the loss of innocence that despite multiple wars and other problems, remained an ideal, a last bastion of unwavering American Spirit, that every time I’ve read this poem before, now seems cheap in comparison.

The country was heartbroken, Walt Whitman himself is clearly distraught over what had happened. While reading the entire selection I could almost picture Walt holding Lincoln in his arms, something akin to Michealangelo’s Pieta (Google it).

As I write this, I’m actually a little pissed at The Dead Poet Society. The death of an American President, a man who fought to save the Union and would be remembered for guiding our nation through one of its darkest hours, was held tantamount to Robin Wiliams being fired for being too zany. This is like FDR’s Day of Infamy speech being shang-hied for an iPod commercial or “I Have a Dream” quoted in a GAP ad. There is a disproportionate level of actual human loss to unnecessary crap.

Or maybe I just need a nap.

Run on sentences FTW!

Wow, I’ve been sick, but I’m pretty much back (still have a bit of a headache) and I’m trying to make up for lost time. So here goes nothing:

Walt Whitman is Porn.

Ok, maybe not porn per se, but definitely a slightly-more-than-necessary sex scene in an indie film. You know, like its not smutty or anything, and perhaps even develops the story or strengthens the character’s emotional bonds and allows for personal growth, but the scene kind of carries on for a bit more than you’re comfortable with, and although tasteful and artsy, has a few too many body parts than you figured would be in it when you and your friends decided which film to see while staring at movie posters in the lobby of the Ritz.

Its not bad or naughty or anything, just somehow off-putting.

O Hymen! O Hymenee!

O hymen! O hymenee! why do you tantalize me thus?
O why sting me for a swift moment only?
Why can you not continue? O why do you now cease?
Is it because if you continued beyond the swift moment you would
soon certainly kill me?

See? Surpising. Not bad, I just would have appreciated an NSFW warning as I listened to the mp3 on my iPod in my car with the windows down.

And that wasn’t even the worst best part. He goes on for a while in From Pent-Up Aching Rivers on what might as well be a Harlequin Romance Novel. It had everything but “heaving bosoms” and Fabio on the cover.

I wonder, did the teenagers during the Civil War and Reconstruction take their girlfriends to Make Out Point in their dad’s horse-drawn-carriage and recite Walt Whitman poems instead of seeing slasher flicks at drive ins (or more modernly, watching Netflix/Hulu/OnDemand on thier parent’s couch)? Did kids during this time huddle around in bedrooms, locker rooms, or the middle of the woods in towns across America peering over someone’s dad’s Leaves of Grass? Poor bastards, life must have been hard before the Internet.

And with that, I leave you with fun links:

(Everything is SFW as long as your you have headphones and an employer with a sense of humor)

Porn for the Blind

http://pornfortheblind.org/

“The Internet is for Porn” Song  – Avenue Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-TA57L0kuc

In “Memories of President Lincoln”, Whitman eulogizes the fallen president and writes his most mainstream poem “O Captain! My Captain!”, an simple extended metaphor in the which the ship is the nation, and Lincoln is the fallen captain.

At last, Whitman rhymes! And not surprisingly, he shows effortless mastery of rhyme. This is the most conventional Whitman poem I’ve come across.  Here Whitman is truly the poet of democracy, because ordinary people can understand and appreciate this poem–and they did.  It was the only poem that was put in an anthology during Whitman’s lifetime, his hit single. For the average American, this is likely the only exposure they’ll ever have to Whitman. Who can forget the melodramatic closing scene of Dead Poets Society when the first boy stands on his desk and says “O Captain! My Capitan” ?

In “O Captain! My Capitan!” we hear a new poetic voice. Whitman has put himself and his experimental voice aside. I don’t feel the exalted universal “I” in this poem. The focus in this poem is on “my”. Whitman is humble, focusing on his role as the captain’s subject and as a son.

Each stanza is 8 lines, (4 long followed by 4 short) and begins with a reference to the captain and ends with “fallen cold and dead”.  The sixth and eighth lines always rhyme, bringing drama emphasis to “dead” the final word of each stanza.

In the first four lines of each staza, the rhyme scheme varies. In stanza 1, the first two lines rhyme (”done” and “won”), the stanza 2, there is no rhyme in the first four lines. In stanza 3, line 1 and 2 rhyme (still and will) along with 3 and 4 (done and won), a recapitulation of the rhymes found in the first two lines of the poem. This makes the poem catchier and easier to memorize than his free verse works.

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up – for you the flag is flung – for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths – for you the shores
a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

According to Reynolds, Whitman was embarrassed by the poem and its regular meter and melodrama. Horace Traubel recorded Whitman as saying, “I’m honest when I say damn My Captain and all the Captains in the book.” But Whitman recited the poem often during his popular Lincoln lecture series in the 1870s. It’s not uncommon for great artists to despise their most popular works.

Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage, 1995. print

Whitman, Walt. “O Captain! My Captain!” Whitman Poetry & Prose. Library of America, 1996. p.621. pint

In “Memories of President Lincoln”, Whitman eulogizes the fallen president and writes his most mainstream poem “O Captain! My Captain!”, an simple extended metaphor in the which the ship is the nation, and Lincoln is the fallen captain.

At last, Whitman rhymes! And not surprisingly, he shows effortless mastery of rhyme. This is the most conventional Whitman poem I’ve come across.  Here Whitman is truly the poet of democracy, because ordinary people can understand and appreciate this poem–and they did.  It was the only poem that was put in an anthology during Whitman’s lifetime, his hit single. For the average American, this is likely the only exposure they’ll ever have to Whitman. Who can forget the melodramatic closing scene of Dead Poets Society when the first boy stands on his desk and says “O Captain! My Capitan” ?

In “O Captain! My Capitan!” we hear a new poetic voice. Whitman has put himself and his experimental voice aside. I don’t feel the exalted universal “I” in this poem. The focus in this poem is on “my”. Whitman is humble, focusing on his role as the captain’s subject and as a son.

Each stanza is 8 lines, (4 long followed by 4 short) and begins with a reference to the captain and ends with “fallen cold and dead”.  The sixth and eighth lines always rhyme, bringing drama emphasis to “dead” the final word of each stanza.

In the first four lines of each staza, the rhyme scheme varies. In stanza 1, the first two lines rhyme (”done” and “won”), the stanza 2, there is no rhyme in the first four lines. In stanza 3, line 1 and 2 rhyme (still and will) along with 3 and 4 (done and won), a recapitulation of the rhymes found in the first two lines of the poem. This makes the poem catchier and easier to memorize than his free verse works.

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up – for you the flag is flung – for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths – for you the shores
a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

According to Reynolds, Whitman was embarrassed by the poem and its regular meter and melodrama. Horace Traubel recorded Whitman as saying, “I’m honest when I say damn My Captain and all the Captains in the book.” But Whitman recited the poem often during his popular Lincoln lecture series in the 1870s. It’s not uncommon for great artists to despise their most popular works.

Reynolds, David S. Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography. New York: Vintage, 1995. print

Whitman, Walt. “O Captain! My Captain!” Whitman Poetry & Prose. Library of America, 1996. p.621. pint