I met a seer…

“The friendly and flowing savage. . . .  Who is he?

Is he waiting for civilization or past it and mastering it?” (71)

These lines by Whitman were remarkable to me.  I don’t know this to be fact, but I’d imagine that our fuller understandings of the complexities of Native American culture came after Whitman.  The fact that Whitman poses this question about their “civilization” seems way ahead of his time!  After all, the excuse for taking over Native Americans’ land and for the attempts at bringing Christianity to them was always that they are “uncivilized.”  Whitman, here, calls this very excuse –  that would be used for many years in North America – into question. 

Language studies show us the power of words such as “savage” for Native American, “enemy” for and Iraqi soldier.  These words dehumanize the people in order to better serve the ends of the “colonizing” forces.  Whitman immediately humanizes the “savage” with “Who is he?”.   

By breaking this traditional frame of Native American as savage – and posing a question about the very identity of his humanity, Whitman is introducing a new way to talk about and think about the Native Americans.  While this is largely “typical” for Whitman (emphasis on the humane), it is not “typical” for his time. 

Beyond humanizing the “savage”, Whitman also questions his level of “civility” (in terms of civilization).  “Is he waiting for civilization?” – I think most of Whitman’s time would say yes.   Immediately, however, Whitman poses the other possibility, “or is he past it and mastering it?”  To pose this question seems hugely revolutionary to me.  Is a “savage” past civilization and mastering it?  Should we look to Native Americans to see how we should live?  Are they not only civilized, but beyond our own civilization?  The implications of these questions are quite expansive. 

After this moment, he continues to ask questions about the “savage” – delineating various ways that Native Americans can be described beyond “savage” – “southwesterner”, “Canadian”, from “Mississippi”, “Iowa”, “Oregon”, “California”, “mountains”, “Prairie life”, “bush-life”, the “sea”.    Without wondering about the details of their tribal life, Whitman shows that they’re already far more complicated than given credit for – and that they aren’t “savage”  but human.

While I don’t think that these questions are out of the ordinary for Whitman –  I think they may have been considered quite radical in his day.   I could understand if Whitman preferred Native American culture over American culture because of the simplicity of Native American cultures (and the emphasis on the land and the importance of it). 

The man does it again.  The questions Whitman posed in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass are still being assessed and answered today.  The complexities of tribal relations, languages, and the advanced ways of life of Native Americans are still being analyzed and assessed.  Undoubtedly, they’re far more complicated, more civilized, than anyone in early America had ever presumed…except maybe Whitman.

Studying Whitman in the 21st century has made me hyper-aware of just how much Whitman represented the enduring image and values of America.

It is evident that the things that Whitman extolled in “Song of Myself,” are the same things we value as Americans today. Granted, Whitman wrote during the American Renaissance, which is considered the literary period where America finally finds its voice and makes its mark. Still, it is remarkable Whitman’s values and vision of America are still ever present today.

I noticed this first on the radio. (I began a “Songs of Myself” Whitman Playlist series on my blog). Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten” seems, in many respects, to have rewritten much of what Whitman wrote in “Song of Myself”. The speaker in Bedingfield’s song is undefined and “unwritten” – much as Whitman’s “I” is untranslatable, unmeasurable, and unable to be tamed.

The connections to Whitman’s “Song of Myself” do not end here. Just as in Transcendentalism (and Whitman), nature is evoked as a tool of personal illumination. “Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find”.

Furthermore, Bedingfield points out that “no one can feel it for you/Only you can let it in”. Just as Whitman acknowledges that “you must find out for yourself./ Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you”… and “I answer that I cannot answer…you must find out for yourself.” This is the deeply-rooted “self-reliance” of Emerson and the “self-made man” of Franklin – cornerstones of the American dream.

The power of the individual in defining and creating himself takes center stage for both Bedingfield’s “Unwritten” and Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” This individualism is yet another cornerstone of the American dream.

It’s more than just the American dream, though. Bedingfield’s “I” is a rebel as much as free-verse writing Walt was. “I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines”, and she, just as Whitman, is unconcerned with contradiction: “We’ve been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can’t live that way.”

Perhaps where I see Whitman most in Bedingfield’s notion of writing your own book, your own story. What could have been more autobiographical in Whitman’s view than “Song of Myself” or Leaves of Grass? As Whitman grew, changed, and evolved, so did Leaves of Grass. Life is written one day at a time – and nothing exemplifies that better for Whitman than his one, ever-evolving work, Leaves of Grass.

So if we’re looking for Whitman – I don’t think we’ll ever be able to pin him down. He is, after all, unmeasurable and untranslatable. However, there are pieces of him and the America he extolled – like the leaves of grass – everywhere around us.

Tags: Hoffman

As I was reading Chapter 15 of Reynold’s Walt Whitman’s America, I realized that he’s following me… or maybe I’m following him (rather unconsciously I’ll admit). 

During his Camden years, Whitman befriended the Stafford family, who owned a farm outside of Camden.  This family still has living members today, all of whom live in or around Voorhees – where the still-standing Staffordshire Farm now stands as  preserved space. 

I grew up in Voorhees, relatively close to this farm.  My best friend grew up with the farm as her backyard. 

Whitman also spent time at Timber Creek, a creek for which the high school I work at is named. 

Finally, I (obviously) found my way to Camden for Graduate School.

Awesome craziness.

Tags: Camden, Stafford, Timber Creek

My ties and ballasts leave me . . . . I travel . . . . I sail . . . . my elbows rest in the sea-gaps,
I skirt the sierras . . . . my palms cover continents,
I am afoot with my vision.

Prospecting, n. (from Oxford English Dictionary)

1. Mining. The action or practice of exploring a region in search of mineral deposits (esp. gold) or oil; the experimental working of a mine or reef.

1848 W. COLTON Jrnl. 18 Oct. in Three Years Calif. (1850) xxi. 292 Half their time is consumed in what they call prospecting; that is, looking up new deposits [of gold]. 1857 J. D. BORTHWICK Three Years California vi. 124 We abandoned it [sc. our claim], and went ‘prospecting’.

2. In extended use: the action of exploring or searching; the action of looking about for something.

1886 Proc. Royal Geogr. Soc. 8 633 We deemed it wise to anchor the Peace and do some prospecting in the rowing-boat..before we ventured further.

__________________________________________________________

Whitman’s evocation of the prospecting and gold-digging in this section of “Song of Myself” serves a dual purpose. Whitman, at the time of writing this 1855 version of “Song of Myself” despised materialism – and so it would seem, Whitman would disagree with the idea of prospecting for gold. Yet, whether Whitman realized it or not, prospecting brought great expansion and possibility to America – and, ultimately, he may have regarded the movement as a positive one.

During the industry and technology booms of postwar America, Whitman became fascinated with technology’s potential to create the cultural unity he had always sought (Reynolds, Ch. 15). Often, the technology of his poems served as a metaphor for “eventual poetic and religious fruition (Reynolds 499).

As such, his notion of “prospecting” here in “Song of Myself” (nearly 20 years earlier than his affirmations of technology) can also act as a metaphor for Whitman’s purpose. In the context of the poem, “Prospecting…gold-digging…girdling the trees of a new purchase…” is contained within a long laundry list of the “vistas” following his newly-found freedom of movement and vision, “My ties and ballast leave me….I travel…./I am afoot with my vision”. While “prospecting” is a part of his vision, it could also be assumed that he is not watching the “prospecting,” but participating in it. In the line directly before this, Whitman’s “I” is “hoeing my onion-patch…” not watching someone else hoe an onion-patch.

If we deduce, then, that Whitman is prospecting – is he prospecting for gold? I’d argue not. The second definition offered by the Oxford English Dictionary, however, suits Whitman’s “Song of Myself” perfectly: “the action of exploring or searching; the action of looking about for something.” What Whitman is digging and exploring for is not gold, but himself in his vision of the world around him – the bits of “gold” that his vision may afford him so that he may better and more fully understand himself. The digging is into his soul. He is afoot, he is (a work) in progress.

"Prospecting" Blythe

A quick note on David Gilmore Blythe’s painting above: The painting is dated 1861-1863, and it turns out that Blythe shared more than one similarity with Whitman. Claire Perry in her book Young America: Childhood in 19th Century Art and Culture discusses that Blythe was one of the first Americans to use the “street child” as a subject – a trail-blazer much as Whitman was. What is also particularly “Whitman-ian” about it, is that in presenting the street child in the way he does, he’s rebelling against the typical English model that most American artists of the time were following. The English model would have presented the child as a charming beggar, whereas Blythe’s is very real, very lost, and very alone. Blythe, like Whitman, “confronted the viewer and challenged middle-class complacency” (117). While I originally chose this poem, entitled “Prospecting,” for it’s “crossroads” imagery that I felt fit Whitman’s message, it is clear that it has greater resonance than I imagined.

_____________________________________Works Referenced_________

“Gold” Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 2009 <http://dictionary.oed.com.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/>.

“Mining.” Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 2009 <http://dictionary.oed.com.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/>.

“Prospecting.” Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 2009 <http://dictionary.oed.com.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/>.

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

Perry, Claire. Young America: Childhood in 19th Century Art and Culture. viewed through Google Books.

Whitman, Walt. “Song of Myself (1855).” Whitman Poetry & Prose. Library of America, 1996. 59.

Image 1: Alaska State Library photograph PCA 44-3-15 Sourdough in stream panning for gold (Skinner)

Image 2: “Prospecting,” David Gilmour Blythe (American sculptor & painter 1815-1865 <http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/156245/1/Prospecting.jpg>

Tags: Hoffman, imagegloss, ww20

Whitman was heavily interested in and influenced by music – so I think it’s sufficient to assume that if Walt were around today, he’d be bumpin’ to his ipod just like the rest of us.  As I hear songs that sound like they’d rock Walt’s world, I’m going to add them to his “Songs of Myself” Playlist.

Track 1: Natasha Bedingfield, “Unwritten”

Lyrics:

I am unwritten, can’t read my mind, I’m undefined
I’m just beginning, the pen’s in my hand, ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We’ve been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can’t live that way

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten

listen here!

Whitman’s ” Version” via “Song of Myself”

I was never measured, and never will be measured; I too am untranslatable…/There is that in me . . . . I do not know what it is . . . . but I know it is in me.

Unscrew the locks from the doors! /Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!/To behold the daybreak! /The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows

See ever so far . . . . there is limitless space outside of that/Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward/you must find out for yourself./ Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,/You must travel it for yourself/I skirt the sierras . . . . my palms cover continents, /I am afoot with my vision/It is not far . . . . it is within reach

Do I contradict myself?/Very well then . . . . I contradict myself

Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward/you must find out for yourself./ Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,/You must travel it for yourself/I skirt the sierras . . . . my palms cover continents, /I am afoot with my vision/It is not far . . . . it is within reach

Unscrew the locks from the doors! /Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!/To behold the daybreak! /The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows

See ever so far . . . . there is limitless space outside of that/Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward/you must find out for yourself./ Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,/You must travel it for yourself/I skirt the sierras . . . . my palms cover continents, /I am afoot with my vision/It is not far . . . . it is within reach

Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward/you must find out for yourself./ Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you,/You must travel it for yourself/I skirt the sierras . . . . my palms cover continents, /I am afoot with my vision/It is not far . . . . it is within reach

We should surely bring up again where we now stand,/ And as surely go as much farther, and then farther and farther.

Tags: ipod

“Song of Myself” – Constructed or Recorded-as-discovered?

I began this blog thinking about how the text is constructed in a way that suits Whitman, his beliefs, and his focus.  It seems, after all, that Whitman constructs his text around the same philosophy around which he constructed his life (or the life he wished to live).   Self  – not convention – is most important.   This is why his poem jumps from thought-to-thought, seemingly haphazardly.  At times, the poem resonates as stream-of-consciousness … little bits of clarity that fly in and out of his consciousness as he’s singing his song.  Then again, I don’t know how much of it is actually clear.  Perhaps the combination of these snippets of clarity creates, for Whitman, a clearer sense of himself by the end. 

Then a little moment of clarity of my own interferred.  Construction is not a notion to be thrown around in the presence of Whitman.  Meticulous construction seems so un-Whitman by its very nature.  To what extent did Whitman “construct” this text versus how much did he allow to “flow” from him?   How free was his free verse?  I may never know – but I’m hoping that good ole Whitman was true to himself from his content through his structure. 

I digress.  (So I have something in common with Whitman’s song after all…)

Defining who we are is a complicated undertaking.  While Whitman acknowledges this in the content of his “Song”,  he acknowledges it in the structure of it as well.  I am not merely a teacher, a student, a daughter, a friend, or a sister.  We’re all something much more complicated, more ambiguous – something unable to be measured, tamed,  translated.  Indeed, the song of self is something unable to be contained in convention or structure.  Whitman’s use of free verse was undoubtedly “revolutionary”, but it was also, or so it seems in retrospect, the only form which fit his purpose.  If I am unmeasurable – then carefully measured lines of stressed and  unstressed syllables would not only confine me, but redefine me in a structure not my own.   What would result is a constructed self – not a true self, but the “best” self I could fit into someone else’s structure.   “Song of my Best-Fitting-into-a-Sonnet-Self” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. 

To this end, I would argue that Whitman’s purpose is not to define himself for himself – or even for the world.  If it were his purpose – then he would have embarked on a journey that had no end.   I think that “Song of Myself” is a recorded discovery that reveals the complexities of self and the complexities of how and where and why those threads of self enter the fabric of life. 

So what was his purpose in writing it?  “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars.”  And so, “Song of Myself” is one leaf in Whitman’s life.  I think this is its purpose – to be part of something greater.  Perhaps after many editions of Leaves of Grass and numerous poems, this is an “insignificant” part in its relative size – but for Whitman, “The insignificant is as big to me as any…”, and so this piece, which is unable to translate, measure, and define him, is still able to be a tiny tile in his complicated, untranslatable mosaic.

Tags: Hoffman

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then . . . . I contradict myself;

I know I have the best of time and space — and that I was never measured,  and never will be measured.

I too am not a bit tamed . . . . I too am untranslatable

I tramp a perpetual journey

I exist as I am, that is enough.

I chose these six random, unconsecutive lines from Whitman’s “Song of Myself”  as included in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass.   As Whitman hoped all would find themselves in his “Song of Myself”, it seems apropos that in our search for Whitman we begin with what we know best – ourselves.    I chose these lines, rearranged them as I saw fit – essentially creating “found poetry” as I found myself in Whitman’s verse.

Whitman’s notion of contradiction reminds me of Emerson: “Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today” (“Self-Reliance”).  Contradiction is a matter of perception – and I’m far less concerned with how I am perceived than I am with being true to who I am.  The other lines I chose seem to echo a similar theme – unmeasurable, untamed, untranslatable.  I don’t think we can translate ourselves into 6 lines or even the entirety of Whitman’s “Song of Myself.”  I evolve as I go – as I tramp my perpetual journey.  I think he said it all with one line: “I exist as I am, that is enough.” 

I intentionally end with this notion. 

Despite the definitions I try to find and the evolutions I intend to undergo – the journey begins and ends here: I exist as I am… and that is enough.

Tags: Frontispiece

Levi’s & Whitman’s Americas converge

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                  “I met a seer,

Passing the hues and objects of the world,

The fields of art and learning, pleasure, sense,

                  To glean eidolons…

                  Thy body permanent,

The body lurking there within thy body,

The only purport of the form thou art, the real I myself,

                  An image, an eidolon.”

“Eidolons”, stanzas 1 & 20

Walt Whitman in his home in Camden, 1891

 photograph source:  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WaltWhitman-Camden1891.jpg

Tags: Song of Myself