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November 15th, 2009:

Chelsea for November 17, sadly

Nov 15th, 2009
by chelseanewnam.
Comments are off for this post

(As if saying goodbye to Whitman wasn’t enough, I had to go and listen to the recording of Ginsberg reading Howl and A Supermarket in California.  Thanks, guys :-P )

As we draw toward the end of the semester, it becomes increasingly important to take a step back from the more particular tasks of uncovering discrepancies between versions of Leaves of Grass, analyzing speakers in various poems, placing Whitman in an historical context, etc. (which can all become consuming as Whitman has so much to offer in these areas) and instead turn our eyes toward Whitman’s legacy, his stamp on the world.  In doing so, it is amazing how much larger and completely consuming he becomes, which is a feat for a poet who already “contain[s] multitudes.”     

Throughout Andrew C. Higgins’s essay, “The Poet’s Reception and Legacy,” it is made clear that Whitman’s influence was and is everywhere, in every type of artist as well as in those outside of the art world.  Among his readers are those like Ginsberg who idolize and welcome him as a catalyst of change and an embracer of beauty, and there are those like T.S. Eliot who wish to extricate Whitman’s political self from his artistic self and deny his influence in the writing world.  Despite these polar opposite opinions, it is evident that Whitman’s effect, whatever it may be, did not go unnoticed.  He succeeded and succeeds today in reaching people across time and place even from the grave.  This can only be attributed to the fact that during his lifetime he refused to conform to the mandates of a dying country and he insisted with all of his might upon a true United States of America.    

In pouring over the modern and contemporary poetry we read for this week, I was completely awestruck, not because of the quality and power behind the poetry itself, (though undoubtedly that was part of it) but due to the realization that Whitman’s influence was and is in so many more places than I ever imagined.  It is striking to me that a man and poet I knew little of before this semester is in many ways the wellspring of some of my favorite writers – Ginsberg and Rich, for instance.  In the third part of Ginsberg’s Howl, he writes, “I’m with you in Rockland / where we hug and kiss the United States under / our bedsheets the United States that coughs all / night and won’t let us sleep” and I cannot think of another line in contemporary poetry where I see and feel Whitman more clearly. 

Throughout his life Whitman wrote of this “sick” America that suffered from a lack of unity and a lack of individual love and connection.  He fought against the American tendency to grow complacent or violent in the face of such an illness and desired above all else to live in a country that grows in and through each of its members.  Whitman’s America lives today in the hospitals with young men and women dying and fighting to live for it.  It celebrates the delicate intimacy between “comrades” whether male or female or black or white or rich or poor.  Whitman’s America recognizes the poverty and despair that plague it but will not stay silent, will not die out.  And Whitman’s America, my America, no matter the age, will not rest until it is truly a nation founded on and for freedom.

Chelsea for November 17, sadly

Nov 15th, 2009
by chelseanewnam.
Comments are off for this post

(As if saying goodbye to Whitman wasn’t enough, I had to go and listen to the recording of Ginsberg reading Howl and A Supermarket in California.  Thanks, guys 😛 )

As we draw toward the end of the semester, it becomes increasingly important to take a step back from the more particular tasks of uncovering discrepancies between versions of Leaves of Grass, analyzing speakers in various poems, placing Whitman in an historical context, etc. (which can all become consuming as Whitman has so much to offer in these areas) and instead turn our eyes toward Whitman’s legacy, his stamp on the world.  In doing so, it is amazing how much larger and completely consuming he becomes, which is a feat for a poet who already “contain[s] multitudes.”     

Throughout Andrew C. Higgins’s essay, “The Poet’s Reception and Legacy,” it is made clear that Whitman’s influence was and is everywhere, in every type of artist as well as in those outside of the art world.  Among his readers are those like Ginsberg who idolize and welcome him as a catalyst of change and an embracer of beauty, and there are those like T.S. Eliot who wish to extricate Whitman’s political self from his artistic self and deny his influence in the writing world.  Despite these polar opposite opinions, it is evident that Whitman’s effect, whatever it may be, did not go unnoticed.  He succeeded and succeeds today in reaching people across time and place even from the grave.  This can only be attributed to the fact that during his lifetime he refused to conform to the mandates of a dying country and he insisted with all of his might upon a true United States of America.    

In pouring over the modern and contemporary poetry we read for this week, I was completely awestruck, not because of the quality and power behind the poetry itself, (though undoubtedly that was part of it) but due to the realization that Whitman’s influence was and is in so many more places than I ever imagined.  It is striking to me that a man and poet I knew little of before this semester is in many ways the wellspring of some of my favorite writers – Ginsberg and Rich, for instance.  In the third part of Ginsberg’s Howl, he writes, “I’m with you in Rockland / where we hug and kiss the United States under / our bedsheets the United States that coughs all / night and won’t let us sleep” and I cannot think of another line in contemporary poetry where I see and feel Whitman more clearly. 

Throughout his life Whitman wrote of this “sick” America that suffered from a lack of unity and a lack of individual love and connection.  He fought against the American tendency to grow complacent or violent in the face of such an illness and desired above all else to live in a country that grows in and through each of its members.  Whitman’s America lives today in the hospitals with young men and women dying and fighting to live for it.  It celebrates the delicate intimacy between “comrades” whether male or female or black or white or rich or poor.  Whitman’s America recognizes the poverty and despair that plague it but will not stay silent, will not die out.  And Whitman’s America, my America, no matter the age, will not rest until it is truly a nation founded on and for freedom.

Sam P. for Nov. 17

Nov 15th, 2009
by s-words.
Comments are off for this post

As a rather more-than-avid Bob Dylan listener (I can’t compare to my roommate, who has practically covered his half of the room with good ole Robert Zimmerman’s face), I was pleased though unsurprised to see Andrew Higgins reference Dylan in his essay on Whitman’s “Reception and Legacy.”  I’ve been hearing Dylan in Whitman all along, or, more accurately, I’ve been reading the clear signs of Dylan’s Whitmanian inheritance. 

The cultural context in which Higgins invokes Dylan, however, obliges me to confront the ways in which Whitman’s influence has passed the same problem of reductively politicized interpretation from the graybeard poet to followers like Dylan, who have been similarly confined to the role of artist-as-political-spokesman.  Higgins asserts that Whitman’s legacy consists of the “dramatic actions of his admirers,” by which his legacy “becomes a market, a signifier, used by his admirers, each claiming, to greater or lesser degrees, understanding of a real or an ideal Walt Whitman” (439).  One of the principal shapes Whitman has taken in this “market’s” American branch is that of “‘Father Walt,’ the spirit of the American worker,” a role broadened to “the nationalist Whitman, the Whitman of the populist poets” (447).  Carl Sandburg, a chief proponent of that “populist tradition” that Higgins calls a “poetic dead end,” in turn serves as a key point in the trajectory Higgins traces from Whitman to the mid-century explosion of folk revivalism, which borrows heavily from “Whitman’s vision of the working-class hero” (448).  Of course, that folk movement developed an increasing association with political activism, leaning heavily on “protest songs” as tools of various “left-wing” (antiwar, civil rights, etc.) political movements. 

Placing Dylan in this lineage, however, fascinatingly begs the question of how intrinsically activist Whitman’s poetic example might be.  Anyone familiar with Dylan’s career trajectory through the 1960s will know that, despite achieving great fame as the folk movement’s virtual figurehead by writing “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and other songs that swiftly became anthems for protest, Dylan effected a stylistic shift into denser, less identifiably political lyrics that were accompanied by brash rock & roll instrumentation that bore little resemblance to the supposedly “purer” acoustic folk sound.  The folk community called this a betrayal, and Dylan correspondingly dismissed “folk music” as incompatible with his interests. 

However, in spite of the too-tidy “before-and-after” distinction that suggests Dylan’s break from the “folk revival” might have meant an estrangement from his Whitmanian roots, even his pre-split songs bear pervasive signs of a Whitmanian influence that reached beyond the “working class,” “populist” identity that Higgins attributes to him, and which so commonly bolstered the “folk movement’s” own “topically” politicized pursuits.  Consider “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” one of the songs most hungrily grabbed up as ripe protest material:

 

The song’s constant emphasis on parallel constructions (“Where have you been,” “What did you see;” “I saw, I saw,” etc.), and its sense of the singer as a prophet anticipating the “hard rain” that will envelop large and small, beautiful and hideous, “dozen dead oceans” and “clown that cried in the alley” alike, recalls nothing if not the long catalogues and encompassing sensibility of “Song of Myself.”  It’s pervaded with a kind of cosmic political sensibility, an immense American guilt, that only occasionally states the politically obvious (“I met a white man who walked a black dog”), usually transmuting common attitudes or experiences, like misogyny and repressed sexuality, into apocalyptic, even somewhat surreal imagery (“I met a young woman whose body was burning”).  However, just as Higgins notes that Horace Traubel and other Whitman biographers attempted to cast the poet as a “semidivine prophet of socialism” (442), Dylan’s contemporaries often construed “Hard Rain” as a protest against impending nuclear disaster because the song’s first performances roughly coincided with the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Then again, showing a reticence to get tied to a particular “cause,” “movement,” or stable public identity that echoes Higgins’ assertion that “Whitman somewhat resisted both the effort to enlist him in socialism and to beatify him” (442), Dylan dismissed these efforts to interpret the song so topically whenever possible, insisting that “it’s not an atomic rain, it’s just a hard rain.  It isn’t the fallout rain.  I mean some end that’s just gotta happen…”

By appealing to a broader form of address than that available through antiwar (or any other particular) protest, Dylan renders his work both more truly Whitmanian and less compatible with a folk culture that looked to him for singer-activism.  Of course, just as Whitman recruited and reconfigured his poetry as a vehicle for pro-war enjoinders like “Beat! Beat! Drums!”, Dylan often appeared and performed at unambiguously political events, the 1963 civil rights March on Washington not least among them.  But “Hard Rain” and other ostensibly “anthemic” “folk” songs, like Whitman’s Drum-Taps, reach beyond immediate causes and events in pursuit of, say, greater immensities in their art.  Dylan’s alignment with the “kosmos” Whitman suggests his own attempt to reach beyond the “populist dead end” that neither poet nor singer ever obeyed, and illustrates the way in which Whitmanian influence, when genuinely and thoroughly integrated into an artist’s body of work, allows that work the expansiveness that Whitman intended for his own.

Sam P. for Nov. 17

Nov 15th, 2009
by s-words.
Comments are off for this post

As a rather more-than-avid Bob Dylan listener (I can’t compare to my roommate, who has practically covered his half of the room with good ole Robert Zimmerman’s face), I was pleased though unsurprised to see Andrew Higgins reference Dylan in his essay on Whitman’s “Reception and Legacy.”  I’ve been hearing Dylan in Whitman all along, or, more accurately, I’ve been reading the clear signs of Dylan’s Whitmanian inheritance. 

The cultural context in which Higgins invokes Dylan, however, obliges me to confront the ways in which Whitman’s influence has passed the same problem of reductively politicized interpretation from the graybeard poet to followers like Dylan, who have been similarly confined to the role of artist-as-political-spokesman.  Higgins asserts that Whitman’s legacy consists of the “dramatic actions of his admirers,” by which his legacy “becomes a market, a signifier, used by his admirers, each claiming, to greater or lesser degrees, understanding of a real or an ideal Walt Whitman” (439).  One of the principal shapes Whitman has taken in this “market’s” American branch is that of “‘Father Walt,’ the spirit of the American worker,” a role broadened to “the nationalist Whitman, the Whitman of the populist poets” (447).  Carl Sandburg, a chief proponent of that “populist tradition” that Higgins calls a “poetic dead end,” in turn serves as a key point in the trajectory Higgins traces from Whitman to the mid-century explosion of folk revivalism, which borrows heavily from “Whitman’s vision of the working-class hero” (448).  Of course, that folk movement developed an increasing association with political activism, leaning heavily on “protest songs” as tools of various “left-wing” (antiwar, civil rights, etc.) political movements. 

Placing Dylan in this lineage, however, fascinatingly begs the question of how intrinsically activist Whitman’s poetic example might be.  Anyone familiar with Dylan’s career trajectory through the 1960s will know that, despite achieving great fame as the folk movement’s virtual figurehead by writing “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and other songs that swiftly became anthems for protest, Dylan effected a stylistic shift into denser, less identifiably political lyrics that were accompanied by brash rock & roll instrumentation that bore little resemblance to the supposedly “purer” acoustic folk sound.  The folk community called this a betrayal, and Dylan correspondingly dismissed “folk music” as incompatible with his interests. 

However, in spite of the too-tidy “before-and-after” distinction that suggests Dylan’s break from the “folk revival” might have meant an estrangement from his Whitmanian roots, even his pre-split songs bear pervasive signs of a Whitmanian influence that reached beyond the “working class,” “populist” identity that Higgins attributes to him, and which so commonly bolstered the “folk movement’s” own “topically” politicized pursuits.  Consider “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” one of the songs most hungrily grabbed up as ripe protest material:

 

The song’s constant emphasis on parallel constructions (“Where have you been,” “What did you see;” “I saw, I saw,” etc.), and its sense of the singer as a prophet anticipating the “hard rain” that will envelop large and small, beautiful and hideous, “dozen dead oceans” and “clown that cried in the alley” alike, recalls nothing if not the long catalogues and encompassing sensibility of “Song of Myself.”  It’s pervaded with a kind of cosmic political sensibility, an immense American guilt, that only occasionally states the politically obvious (“I met a white man who walked a black dog”), usually transmuting common attitudes or experiences, like misogyny and repressed sexuality, into apocalyptic, even somewhat surreal imagery (“I met a young woman whose body was burning”).  However, just as Higgins notes that Horace Traubel and other Whitman biographers attempted to cast the poet as a “semidivine prophet of socialism” (442), Dylan’s contemporaries often construed “Hard Rain” as a protest against impending nuclear disaster because the song’s first performances roughly coincided with the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Then again, showing a reticence to get tied to a particular “cause,” “movement,” or stable public identity that echoes Higgins’ assertion that “Whitman somewhat resisted both the effort to enlist him in socialism and to beatify him” (442), Dylan dismissed these efforts to interpret the song so topically whenever possible, insisting that “it’s not an atomic rain, it’s just a hard rain.  It isn’t the fallout rain.  I mean some end that’s just gotta happen…”

By appealing to a broader form of address than that available through antiwar (or any other particular) protest, Dylan renders his work both more truly Whitmanian and less compatible with a folk culture that looked to him for singer-activism.  Of course, just as Whitman recruited and reconfigured his poetry as a vehicle for pro-war enjoinders like “Beat! Beat! Drums!”, Dylan often appeared and performed at unambiguously political events, the 1963 civil rights March on Washington not least among them.  But “Hard Rain” and other ostensibly “anthemic” “folk” songs, like Whitman’s Drum-Taps, reach beyond immediate causes and events in pursuit of, say, greater immensities in their art.  Dylan’s alignment with the “kosmos” Whitman suggests his own attempt to reach beyond the “populist dead end” that neither poet nor singer ever obeyed, and illustrates the way in which Whitmanian influence, when genuinely and thoroughly integrated into an artist’s body of work, allows that work the expansiveness that Whitman intended for his own.

Courtney for 11/17

Nov 15th, 2009
by cirvine1965.
Comments are off for this post

It has been nearly impossible for me to categorize Whitman.  One week I read a poem and find myself completely overcome by inspiration; the next week I’m totally frustrated and just want to scream, “C’mon, Walt!  Get to the point already!”  I am beginning to see that it is the confliction that has made Walt so immensely popular over the years.  He has the ability to encompass everything, giving his readers endless chances to be inspired or enraged.  He is an American poet, a nature poet, a gay poet, a war poet, or a love poet (especially in the eyes of those that are particularly fond of Abe Lincoln).

This must be the appeal.  Ezra Pound perfectly describes the conflict of interpreting Whitman, saying that he “is an exceedingly nauseating pill, but he accomplishes his mission.”  Whitman’s endless effort to encompass everything and everyone makes him difficult to grasp sometimes, but it also allows nearly any reader to find something that seems to speak to him or her directly.  Old Walt was a smart guy, though.  He probably knew better than anyone his broad appeal, like in ‘Song of Myself,’ when he says, “I am the mate and companion of all people. Just as immortal and fathomless as myself, (They do not know how immortal, but I know.)”  Whitman is immortal, his legacy lives on the lives that he has touched and the works he has inspired.

The only selection that I was familiar with from this week’s readings was that of Allen Ginsberg.  The connection between these two men is pretty obvious: the beards, the prophetic self-images, and their “possibly-romantic-or-maybe-just-platonic” obsessions with their contemporaries.  However, my favorite poem from this week was “Ode to Walt Whitman” by Frederico Garcia Lorca.

I’ve been thinking about Whitman as an “American Poet” and I’ve decided that he does indeed fit the bill.  Here is this poet, Frederico.  He is a gay Latin-American poet living in America in the 1930s.  He picked up Leaves of Grass, and it spoke to him.  Whitman truly lived up to his promises of creating a comradeship of men from all different walks of life.  In his poem, Lorca evokes Whitman in both form and content.  I know I had a fellow Whitmaniac on my hands when I read,

“Not for a moment, Walt Whitman, lovely old man,

Have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies,

Nor your corduroy shoulders frayed by the moon,

Nor your thighs pure as Apollo’s,

Nor your voice like a column of ash,

Old man, beautiful as the mist…”

He calls Whitman “old man” twice in this short passage.  A term that I too have begun to use in reverence, picturing this old gray prophet dispensing wisdom down to his followers.  The repetition in the poem is something that I can easily recognize as taken from Whitman and the declarations and explanation points also hark back to our Whitman.

It’s pretty amazing to read the scope of works that have been inspired by our Walt.  Artists spanning several decades and walks of life create echoes of Whitman’s message.  Just as he predicted, he is indeed immortal and has become the voice of America.

Courtney for 11/17

Nov 15th, 2009
by cirvine1965.
Comments are off for this post

It has been nearly impossible for me to categorize Whitman.  One week I read a poem and find myself completely overcome by inspiration; the next week I’m totally frustrated and just want to scream, “C’mon, Walt!  Get to the point already!”  I am beginning to see that it is the confliction that has made Walt so immensely popular over the years.  He has the ability to encompass everything, giving his readers endless chances to be inspired or enraged.  He is an American poet, a nature poet, a gay poet, a war poet, or a love poet (especially in the eyes of those that are particularly fond of Abe Lincoln).

This must be the appeal.  Ezra Pound perfectly describes the conflict of interpreting Whitman, saying that he “is an exceedingly nauseating pill, but he accomplishes his mission.”  Whitman’s endless effort to encompass everything and everyone makes him difficult to grasp sometimes, but it also allows nearly any reader to find something that seems to speak to him or her directly.  Old Walt was a smart guy, though.  He probably knew better than anyone his broad appeal, like in ‘Song of Myself,’ when he says, “I am the mate and companion of all people. Just as immortal and fathomless as myself, (They do not know how immortal, but I know.)”  Whitman is immortal, his legacy lives on the lives that he has touched and the works he has inspired.

The only selection that I was familiar with from this week’s readings was that of Allen Ginsberg.  The connection between these two men is pretty obvious: the beards, the prophetic self-images, and their “possibly-romantic-or-maybe-just-platonic” obsessions with their contemporaries.  However, my favorite poem from this week was “Ode to Walt Whitman” by Frederico Garcia Lorca.

I’ve been thinking about Whitman as an “American Poet” and I’ve decided that he does indeed fit the bill.  Here is this poet, Frederico.  He is a gay Latin-American poet living in America in the 1930s.  He picked up Leaves of Grass, and it spoke to him.  Whitman truly lived up to his promises of creating a comradeship of men from all different walks of life.  In his poem, Lorca evokes Whitman in both form and content.  I know I had a fellow Whitmaniac on my hands when I read,

“Not for a moment, Walt Whitman, lovely old man,

Have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies,

Nor your corduroy shoulders frayed by the moon,

Nor your thighs pure as Apollo’s,

Nor your voice like a column of ash,

Old man, beautiful as the mist…”

He calls Whitman “old man” twice in this short passage.  A term that I too have begun to use in reverence, picturing this old gray prophet dispensing wisdom down to his followers.  The repetition in the poem is something that I can easily recognize as taken from Whitman and the declarations and explanation points also hark back to our Whitman.

It’s pretty amazing to read the scope of works that have been inspired by our Walt.  Artists spanning several decades and walks of life create echoes of Whitman’s message.  Just as he predicted, he is indeed immortal and has become the voice of America.

The tallest of Sams for November 17

Nov 15th, 2009
by tallersam.
Comments are off for this post

     The readings for this week were incredible. I have to admit that, after listening to Ginsberg’s recitation of Howl (the first time I had ever heard that poem recited, much less by the writer), I texted Chelsea and said “I feel like Ginsberg just danced flamenco on my brain with cleats.” Just so everyone knows :-) .

     Anyway, for this week’s question about Whitman’s influence, I decided to focus on Robert Lowell’s For the Union Dead. In it, I think the poet takes a very balanced approach to Whitman. Lowell is not blind to the faults of Whitman: For the Union Dead observes the latent, awkward racism that has been a characteristic of both Whitman and the states throughout their years. However, a very Whitmanic idea about the necessity of memory is also beautifully articulated. The Whitman that shines through in Lowell’s poem is the emotive spirit of the country that struggles to survive in a time that often emphasizes utility over beauty.

     So, first things first, to get the less fun things out of the way: Whitman was not above racism. We’ve read stuff both in and out of class about it and, even though it hurts, it’s true. Lowell’s description of the relief of the African-American soldiers as “… a fishbone / in the city’s throat” expresses the nature of the racism in both Whitman and the United States very well. It is not too difficult for a city board to approve a mural depicting the heroics of long-dead former slaves, just as Whitman was able to write about his empathy for slaves in the comfort of his own room. That’s the meat of the fish, the good taste of stepping outside the box.

     Unfortunately, it is when the perspective shifts from the idealized to the personal that the unexpected and uncomfortable bone reveals itself. To the father of Colonel Shaw, the soldiers that fought and died with his son are less than human, a regiment of individual men all summed up in one word, and were so thoughtless that they did not even allow him the courtesy of burying his heroic progeny. According to our Higgins reading for this week, one of the fish bones for Whitman was the Fifteenth Amendment. An imagined slave was virtuous enough to warrant praise, but a real-life African-American was not trustworthy enough to be included in the country’s body of voters. I believe that this racism reinforces the importance of memory that Lowell’s speaker emphasizes.

     A recurring idea in For the Union Dead is the return of the repressed. Even though the museum housing primitive animals has been knocked down, “yellow dinosaur steamshovels” still populate the land. Even though the overt monument to the animal kingdom has been destroyed, “Everywhere, / giant finned cars nose forward like fish.” People are trying to forget their less-civilized roots, but they continue to manifest themselves. That applies to the city’s racism; they try to drown out the memory with a mural. That forgetfulness is what perpetuates the problem though: those that do not remember the less-than-savory aspects of history are doomed to repeat them.

     The pathetic substitute for a World War II monument, the advertisement for Mosler Safe Company, illustrates both the necessity for memory and the disturbing lack of it. The inspiration for the ad is nothing less than the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan, a most grave subject that must never be forgotten. However, instead of reminding passersby of the horrific nature of war, the picture emphasizes what was preserved through the atomic blast. There is no mention of the thousands that died, both immediately and later on, because of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The positive spin of the ad might make an unwary pedestrian wonder if the bomb was really that bad after all. Apply the ripple effect, and eventually the resulting callousness might result in an atomic bombing that was taken too lightly.

     Whitman saw his Memoranda notes as a necessity, preserving the memory of what the unsung foot soldiers suffered through during the Civil War so that their lives, and hopefully the lives of future soldiers, would not be uselessly thrown away by disconnected generals with a romantic view of war. It is a personal perspective that stands in contrast to the afore-mentioned racism and exposes it for the terrible idea that it is. The capitalistic call for utilitarianism would do away with these difficult memories, in the name of efficiency and the bottom line, but Whitman is the yawp that demands their remembrance. While he was not above reproach himself, Whitman is the voice that calls us to move beyond our obstacles by going through them instead of around them.

The tallest of Sams for November 17

Nov 15th, 2009
by tallersam.
Comments are off for this post

     The readings for this week were incredible. I have to admit that, after listening to Ginsberg’s recitation of Howl (the first time I had ever heard that poem recited, much less by the writer), I texted Chelsea and said “I feel like Ginsberg just danced flamenco on my brain with cleats.” Just so everyone knows :-).

     Anyway, for this week’s question about Whitman’s influence, I decided to focus on Robert Lowell’s For the Union Dead. In it, I think the poet takes a very balanced approach to Whitman. Lowell is not blind to the faults of Whitman: For the Union Dead observes the latent, awkward racism that has been a characteristic of both Whitman and the states throughout their years. However, a very Whitmanic idea about the necessity of memory is also beautifully articulated. The Whitman that shines through in Lowell’s poem is the emotive spirit of the country that struggles to survive in a time that often emphasizes utility over beauty.

     So, first things first, to get the less fun things out of the way: Whitman was not above racism. We’ve read stuff both in and out of class about it and, even though it hurts, it’s true. Lowell’s description of the relief of the African-American soldiers as “… a fishbone / in the city’s throat” expresses the nature of the racism in both Whitman and the United States very well. It is not too difficult for a city board to approve a mural depicting the heroics of long-dead former slaves, just as Whitman was able to write about his empathy for slaves in the comfort of his own room. That’s the meat of the fish, the good taste of stepping outside the box.

     Unfortunately, it is when the perspective shifts from the idealized to the personal that the unexpected and uncomfortable bone reveals itself. To the father of Colonel Shaw, the soldiers that fought and died with his son are less than human, a regiment of individual men all summed up in one word, and were so thoughtless that they did not even allow him the courtesy of burying his heroic progeny. According to our Higgins reading for this week, one of the fish bones for Whitman was the Fifteenth Amendment. An imagined slave was virtuous enough to warrant praise, but a real-life African-American was not trustworthy enough to be included in the country’s body of voters. I believe that this racism reinforces the importance of memory that Lowell’s speaker emphasizes.

     A recurring idea in For the Union Dead is the return of the repressed. Even though the museum housing primitive animals has been knocked down, “yellow dinosaur steamshovels” still populate the land. Even though the overt monument to the animal kingdom has been destroyed, “Everywhere, / giant finned cars nose forward like fish.” People are trying to forget their less-civilized roots, but they continue to manifest themselves. That applies to the city’s racism; they try to drown out the memory with a mural. That forgetfulness is what perpetuates the problem though: those that do not remember the less-than-savory aspects of history are doomed to repeat them.

     The pathetic substitute for a World War II monument, the advertisement for Mosler Safe Company, illustrates both the necessity for memory and the disturbing lack of it. The inspiration for the ad is nothing less than the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan, a most grave subject that must never be forgotten. However, instead of reminding passersby of the horrific nature of war, the picture emphasizes what was preserved through the atomic blast. There is no mention of the thousands that died, both immediately and later on, because of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The positive spin of the ad might make an unwary pedestrian wonder if the bomb was really that bad after all. Apply the ripple effect, and eventually the resulting callousness might result in an atomic bombing that was taken too lightly.

     Whitman saw his Memoranda notes as a necessity, preserving the memory of what the unsung foot soldiers suffered through during the Civil War so that their lives, and hopefully the lives of future soldiers, would not be uselessly thrown away by disconnected generals with a romantic view of war. It is a personal perspective that stands in contrast to the afore-mentioned racism and exposes it for the terrible idea that it is. The capitalistic call for utilitarianism would do away with these difficult memories, in the name of efficiency and the bottom line, but Whitman is the yawp that demands their remembrance. While he was not above reproach himself, Whitman is the voice that calls us to move beyond our obstacles by going through them instead of around them.

Meghan for November 17

Nov 15th, 2009
by meghanedwards.
Comments are off for this post

Oh, Walt.

We’re pretty much at the final stretch for this class, and having dealt with his death (where I was a very weepy individual), it seems appropriate that we now look at what Whitman has left us. Or, to be more specific, I suppose, what the world has done with Whitman now that we only have his poetry to guide us.

We claim Whitman as the American poet, but interestingly enough, I don’t really know if he can take only that title.  I think that Whitman has established World Status. Our readings alone stretch his influence across oceans, and that’s not even a small part of those who have taken Leaves and made it part of themselves.  The poet of our Nation has created other poets of Nations; Guo Moruo, for instance, was heavily influenced by the few translations he managed to get and has become one of the more influential poets in China. Moruo often responds to the idea of democracy and a revolution against traditionalism (much like Whitman’s rejection of classicism).

Take a look at a couple of these stanzas from the prefatory poem in Moruo’s The Goddesses:

I am a proletarian

Because except for my naked self, I possess nothing else.

The Goddesses is my own creation,

And may be said to be my private property,

Yet I want to be a communist,

Therefore I make her public to all.

Goddesses!

Go and find the one with the same vibrations as me,

Go and find the one with as may kindling points as myself.

Go and strike the heartstrings

In the breasts of the dear young brothers and sister,

And kindle the light of their wisdom!

Thematically, I can see Leaves resonating here. Moruo’s individualism stands out, with stark images such as “my naked self,” and the numerous uses of a possessive pronoun and “I.” The pride of his individualism is also present in the second stanza; although I’m still working out what “same vibrations” is, Whitman could easily have written these same words about himself, proclaiming the divinity of his poesy prophecy. Yet Moruo also rebels against individualism, his sense of unity is displayed in his desires to “make (Goddesses) public to all” and by placing both “brothers and sisters” in the same line, neither above the other. This line also makes Moruo a teacher in the sense that Whitman is; both seek to teach their political stances and ideals through poetry, uniting men and women through education.

Structurally, the two are similar as well; note the exclamation marks and the repetition of “Go,” which I think serves to reinforce the poet’s many points and the length of the journey one might have to go to find someone such as the poet. The fact that the last line never quite ends may imply that such a quest is also never ending. Because Moruo and others embraced Whitman so completely, Whitman has become one of the influential Western poets and one of the most studied. This is not to say that the Chinese completely look away from traditionalism; Whitman is also one of the most controversial Western poets because of his radical Western ideals.

I think that Whitman’s world influence is something that he would have been proud of. I mean, look at this stanza from “Salut Au Monde!”:

Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens,

Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east—America is provided for in
the west,
Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator,
Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends,
Within me is the longest day, the sun wheels in slanting rings, it
does not set for months,
Stretch’d in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above
the horizon and sinks again,
Within me zones, seas, cataracts, forests, volcanoes, groups,

Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands.

Yes, Whitman was a proponent of manifest destiny, and these lines definitely speak to the that. But that imperialism also applies to his words and ideas; Whitman knows that he will stretch across the map and infect every nation. As for his canonical status, that’s something else I think he may have appreciated; it provides the chance for the ideas of Leaves to spread to even more individuals, educated or not. What’s important about it though, is that those who are studying it pay attention to those ideals and learn from them, rather than merely sucking in his words and ignoring their purpose. Whitman, I am glad you never went to high school with me.


Meghan for November 17

Nov 15th, 2009
by meghanedwards.
Comments are off for this post

Oh, Walt.

We’re pretty much at the final stretch for this class, and having dealt with his death (where I was a very weepy individual), it seems appropriate that we now look at what Whitman has left us. Or, to be more specific, I suppose, what the world has done with Whitman now that we only have his poetry to guide us.

We claim Whitman as the American poet, but interestingly enough, I don’t really know if he can take only that title.  I think that Whitman has established World Status. Our readings alone stretch his influence across oceans, and that’s not even a small part of those who have taken Leaves and made it part of themselves.  The poet of our Nation has created other poets of Nations; Guo Moruo, for instance, was heavily influenced by the few translations he managed to get and has become one of the more influential poets in China. Moruo often responds to the idea of democracy and a revolution against traditionalism (much like Whitman’s rejection of classicism).

Take a look at a couple of these stanzas from the prefatory poem in Moruo’s The Goddesses:

I am a proletarian

Because except for my naked self, I possess nothing else.

The Goddesses is my own creation,

And may be said to be my private property,

Yet I want to be a communist,

Therefore I make her public to all.

Goddesses!

Go and find the one with the same vibrations as me,

Go and find the one with as may kindling points as myself.

Go and strike the heartstrings

In the breasts of the dear young brothers and sister,

And kindle the light of their wisdom!

Thematically, I can see Leaves resonating here. Moruo’s individualism stands out, with stark images such as “my naked self,” and the numerous uses of a possessive pronoun and “I.” The pride of his individualism is also present in the second stanza; although I’m still working out what “same vibrations” is, Whitman could easily have written these same words about himself, proclaiming the divinity of his poesy prophecy. Yet Moruo also rebels against individualism, his sense of unity is displayed in his desires to “make (Goddesses) public to all” and by placing both “brothers and sisters” in the same line, neither above the other. This line also makes Moruo a teacher in the sense that Whitman is; both seek to teach their political stances and ideals through poetry, uniting men and women through education.

Structurally, the two are similar as well; note the exclamation marks and the repetition of “Go,” which I think serves to reinforce the poet’s many points and the length of the journey one might have to go to find someone such as the poet. The fact that the last line never quite ends may imply that such a quest is also never ending. Because Moruo and others embraced Whitman so completely, Whitman has become one of the influential Western poets and one of the most studied. This is not to say that the Chinese completely look away from traditionalism; Whitman is also one of the most controversial Western poets because of his radical Western ideals.

I think that Whitman’s world influence is something that he would have been proud of. I mean, look at this stanza from “Salut Au Monde!”:

Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens,

Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the east—America is provided for in
the west,
Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator,
Curiously north and south turn the axis-ends,
Within me is the longest day, the sun wheels in slanting rings, it
does not set for months,
Stretch’d in due time within me the midnight sun just rises above
the horizon and sinks again,
Within me zones, seas, cataracts, forests, volcanoes, groups,

Malaysia, Polynesia, and the great West Indian islands.

Yes, Whitman was a proponent of manifest destiny, and these lines definitely speak to the that. But that imperialism also applies to his words and ideas; Whitman knows that he will stretch across the map and infect every nation. As for his canonical status, that’s something else I think he may have appreciated; it provides the chance for the ideas of Leaves to spread to even more individuals, educated or not. What’s important about it though, is that those who are studying it pay attention to those ideals and learn from them, rather than merely sucking in his words and ignoring their purpose. Whitman, I am glad you never went to high school with me.


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