Her father and his friends sat nearby crosslegged and dumbly smoking . . . . they

had moccasins to their feet and large thick blankets hanging from their

shoulders;

On a bank lounged the trapper . . . . he was dressed mostly in skins . . . . his luxuriant
beard and curls protected his neck,

One hand rested on his rifle . . . . the other hand held firmly the wrist of the red girl,

She had long eyelashes . . . . her head was bare . . . . her coarse straight locks
descended upon her voluptuous limbs and reached to her feet.

The runaway slave came to my house and stopped outside,

I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,

Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsey and weak,

And went where he sat on a log, and led him in and assured him,

And brought water and filled a tub for his sweated body and bruised feet,

And gave him a room that entered from my own, and gave him some coarse clean
clothes,

And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,

And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;

He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and passed north,

I had him sit next me at table . . . . my firelock leaned in the corner.”

Although there are many sections in the poem that are just breathtaking, I chose this passage from the 1855 version of “Leaves of Grass” as my favorite. Walt Whitman is, in my humble opinion, one of the few poets that succeeds in portraying the exact image to his readers. While reading this passage about the marriage of a trapper and a red girl and the story about the runaway slave, I was more than astonished by the scenes that seemed to happen right in front of me.

At the time when the poem was written there were many talks and debates concerning tolerance, slavery, equality etc. These two scenes show Whitman’s stance on the matter, and very well draw a pretty precise sketch of my opinion on these antebellum problems.

I was positively overwhelmed with the amount of work we did during our first class period on the 31st. The introductory class was great and the high point was definitely reading the poem out loud, and holding the old green “Leaves of Grass” copy. Can’t wait for Saturday!

” I do not press my finger across my mouth, I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart, Copulation is no more rank to me than death is. I believe in the flesh and the appetites, Seeing hearing and feeling are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. ”

My body is a shrine of my physical and mental experiences.

Each of my senses is a bliss.

I am a materialist and spiritualist in one.

Thank you Whitman for helping me to express myself !

” I do not press my finger across my mouth, I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart, Copulation is no more rank to me than death is. I believe in the flesh and the appetites, Seeing hearing and feeling are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. ”

My body is a shrine of my physical and mental experiences.

Each of my senses is a bliss.

I am a materialist and spiritualist in one.

Thank you Whitman for helping me to express myself !

” I do not press my finger across my mouth, I keep as delicate around the bowels as around the head and heart, Copulation is no more rank to me than death is. I believe in the flesh and the appetites, Seeing hearing and feeling are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. ”

My body is a shrine of my physical and mental experiences.

Each of my senses is a bliss.

I am a materialist and spiritualist in one.

Thank you Whitman for helping me to express myself !

“I believe in you my soul . . . . the other I am must not abase itself to you

And you must not be abased to the other.

Loafe with me on the grass . . . . loose the stop from your throat,

Not words, not music or rhyme I want . . . . not custom or lecture, not even the best,

Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.”

I have posted this passage because that was how I felt in that very moment. I wanted

to lose myself in the grass, to stop breathing and thinking for a single moment, to

shake off all the barriers and limitations of everyday life restraining me, suffocating

me.  I wanted to “loose the stop from my throat” and listen to the lull of my soul.

I wanted to be that poppy, alone and silent, holding myself on that tiny stem against

the threatening sky. ]]> http://draganb.lookingforwhitman.org/2009/11/06/song-of-dragan/ Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:04:25 +0000 http://draganb.lookingforwhitman.org/?p=3 This face is a lifeboat;
This is the face commanding and bearded . . . . it asks no odds of the rest;
This face is flavored fruit ready for eating;

This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme of all good.

LoG, 1855, pg. 84

And the one I also like and just had to post:

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought
is won

O Captain! My Captain!, 1887

(Marko Skrbic photography)

Some time ago I made a promise to myself… Actually a few of them, some kind of a New Year’s resolution. “I will try to write a letter to one of my favorite illustrators (Brian Froud), I will finally stop biting my nails and I will definitely become a blogger.” I’m starting that letter for the hundredth time now, my nails are getting shorter and shorter, but at least I have this blog!

“Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet…. the effect upon me of my early life…. or the ward and
city I live in…. or the nation,
The latest news…. discoveries, inventions, societies…. authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks – or of myself…. or ill-doing…. or loss
or lack of money…. or depressions or exaltations,
They come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.”

Song of Myself. (1855)

Try reading it without the ellipses… It’s just not the same. Not only the words, but the design of the sentences as well talks about the connection between the physical and the spiritual. Whitman was trying to put his soul on paper, to connect the two, to make you read his thoughts. In the 1891 “Death-bed” Edition of Leaves of Grass he omits the ellipses and only then do we see how this passage becomes harder to relate to. The personal and individual touch is lost, the pauses he deliberately prolonged are gone and the magic is just not there any more.

They do not know how immortal, but I know.

Now, I feel the need to explain why I have chosen this particular passage from the Song of Myself. First, and the foremost, I felt it close to my own understanding of the world. I could not but admire the tranquility with which he speaks of death as of something, not only perfectly normal, but also beautiful. It made me wonder what would my life be like if I too were so free from fear and so courageous to “stare directly into the sun”. Maybe the only way to live as fully as possible is to rid oneself of the fear of the eventual end. An that is what Whitman says in these lines – if you want to celebrate life, first you must accept death, not as the end, but as an inevitable change.