This blog is the “Where Danique found Whitman” segment of the project, but this another video of me reading Walt Whitman’s poem. I really liked this poem. It was interesting because it was one of the things I often wonder about often. The poem was called “To think of Time.”
video
Where Elizabeth Found Whitman
“Years of the Modern” by Walt Whitman
Years of the modern! years of the unperform’d!
Your horizon rises, I see it parting away for more august dramas,
I see not America only, not only Liberty’s nation but other nations
preparing,
I see tremendous entrances and exits, new combinations, the solidarity
of races,
I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world’s stage,
(Have the old forces, the old wars, played their parts? are the acts
suitable to them closed?)
I see Freedom, completely arm’d and victorious and very haughty,
with Law on one side and Peace on the other,
A stupendous trio all issuing forth against the idea of caste;
What historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach?
I see men marching and countermarching by swift millions,
I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies broken,
I see the landmarks of European kings removed,
I see this day the People beginning their landmarks, (all others give
way;)
Never were such sharp questions ask’d as this day,
Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more like a God,
Lo, how he urges and urges, leaving the masses no rest!
His daring foot is on land and sea everywhere, he colonizes the
Pacific, the archipelagoes,
With the steamship, the electric telegraph, the newspaper, the
wholesale engines of war,
With these and the world-spreading factories he interlinks all
geography, all lands;
What whispers are these O lands, running ahead of you, passing under
the seas?
Are all nations communing? is there going to be but one heart to the
globe?
Is humanity forming en-masse? for lo, tyrants tremble, crowns grow dim,
The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine war,
No one knows what will happen next, such portents fill the days and
nights;
Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to
pierce it, is full of phantoms,
Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me,
This incredible rush and heat, this strange ecstatic fever of dreams
O years!
Your dreams O years, how they penetrate through me! (I know not
whether I sleep or wake;)
The perform’d America and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow behind me,
The unperform’d, more gigantic than ever, advance, advance upon me.
Where Elizabeth Found Whitman
“Years of the Modern” by Walt Whitman
Years of the modern! years of the unperform’d!
Your horizon rises, I see it parting away for more august dramas,
I see not America only, not only Liberty’s nation but other nations
preparing,
I see tremendous entrances and exits, new combinations, the solidarity
of races,
I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world’s stage,
(Have the old forces, the old wars, played their parts? are the acts
suitable to them closed?)
I see Freedom, completely arm’d and victorious and very haughty,
with Law on one side and Peace on the other,
A stupendous trio all issuing forth against the idea of caste;
What historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach?
I see men marching and countermarching by swift millions,
I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies broken,
I see the landmarks of European kings removed,
I see this day the People beginning their landmarks, (all others give
way;)
Never were such sharp questions ask’d as this day,
Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more like a God,
Lo, how he urges and urges, leaving the masses no rest!
His daring foot is on land and sea everywhere, he colonizes the
Pacific, the archipelagoes,
With the steamship, the electric telegraph, the newspaper, the
wholesale engines of war,
With these and the world-spreading factories he interlinks all
geography, all lands;
What whispers are these O lands, running ahead of you, passing under
the seas?
Are all nations communing? is there going to be but one heart to the
globe?
Is humanity forming en-masse? for lo, tyrants tremble, crowns grow dim,
The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine war,
No one knows what will happen next, such portents fill the days and
nights;
Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to
pierce it, is full of phantoms,
Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me,
This incredible rush and heat, this strange ecstatic fever of dreams
O years!
Your dreams O years, how they penetrate through me! (I know not
whether I sleep or wake;)
The perform’d America and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow behind me,
The unperform’d, more gigantic than ever, advance, advance upon me.
Whitman Video Locator
Mara Scanlon recently attended a Google Docs workshop with DTLT’s own Martha Burtis and came away with a pretty impressive idea. One of the projects the Digital Whitman students at UMW (and elsewhere in the Looking for Whitman project) is a video about where they found Whitman. They are making these videos themselves, and they are composed of a reading of a particular poem in a specific place. The idea of place plays a key role in the Looking for Whitman project, and Mara thought it would be cool to have the students embed their videos on a Google map that we then embed in a webpage (how’s that for professors with cool ideas?).
So here’s the map with all the UMW students’ videos as well as one from a student in NYC— also I highly recommend you check out the videos, particularly this one and this one.
A Quick How-To for the Whitman Video Locator
I told Martha Mara’s idea—which, in fact, Martha had given her—and she built the Whitman Video Locator that we are now using on the Digital Whitman blog. You can see both the embedded map and form for entering data here. And while I didn’t build it and don’t have all the details, it appears that Martha created a Google Spreadsheet with three columns: time stamp, address, and embed code, with an associated Google Form that allows users to add the address in one field and the embed code for where ever their video lives (YouTube, Blip.tv, Vimeo, etc.) in another.
After that, there is a gadget you need to add to the Spreadsheet titled “Map,” and from there you can select the appropriate range of data—which is the address and embed code columns, not the time stamp. Afer that, you click on the Gadget and publish out the map. What’s nice is that the videos get added real time to the map when people add their address and embed code.
I hope Martha will fill in the holes if I missed anything here, because it is a truly slick use of Google Docs for quickly sharing work through a form and aggregating it instantly via a map, and all the crazier that videos of all kind embed within the map. I love the whole thing.
social networking features of BuddyPress
One of the remarkable and unique aspects of the Looking for Whitman project lies in the way it harnesses familiar social networking tools in service of a richer learning experience through the BuddyPress plugin and navigation bar at the top of your screen. Check out this tutorial to learn more.
social networking features of BuddyPress
One of the remarkable and unique aspects of the Looking for Whitman project lies in the way it harnesses familiar social networking tools in service of a richer learning experience through the BuddyPress plugin and navigation bar at the top of your screen. Check out this tutorial to learn more.
social networking features of BuddyPress
One of the remarkable and unique aspects of the Looking for Whitman project lies in the way it harnesses familiar social networking tools in service of a richer learning experience through the BuddyPress plugin and navigation bar at the top of your screen. Check out this tutorial to learn more.
social networking features of BuddyPress
One of the remarkable and unique aspects of the Looking for Whitman project lies in the way it harnesses familiar social networking tools in service of a richer learning experience through the BuddyPress plugin and navigation bar at the top of your screen. Check out this tutorial to learn more.
social networking features of BuddyPress
One of the remarkable and unique aspects of the Looking for Whitman project lies in the way it harnesses familiar social networking tools in service of a richer learning experience through the BuddyPress plugin and navigation bar at the top of your screen. Check out this tutorial to learn more.