Just another Looking for Whitman weblog

#3 002My voice goes after what  my eyes cannot reach, With the twirl of my tongue I encompass worlds and volumes of worlds. Speech is the twin of my vision….it is unequal to measure itself. It provokes me for ever, It says sarcastically, Walt, you understand enough….why don’t you let it out then? Come now I will not be tantilized….you conceive too much of articulation. 

Speech is a very powerful tool. When used it can provoke change, good and bad. That choice is not only up to the speaker though. It’s also up to the listener. We tend to hear what we want to hear and not always what is being said.

I never thought my first experience would be that of Walt Whitman. Upon first reading Leaves of Grass I knew that I was in uncharted territory. Poems are not read the same as Novels and I’ve always wanted to explore poetry. Reading his words was like trying to find my own. Whitman’s thoughts are all over the place, jumping from topic to topic but in an orderly fashion. Through his eyes, pieces of his life, whether his experiences or the experiences of others, documented in a way that could leave you confused, I found myself reading and rereading lines over and over looking for him. Who is Walt Whitman? And why does he sound familiar to me? I asked myself these questions with every page I turned.
“What is a man anyhow? What am I? and what are you?
All I Mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,

Else it were time lost listening to me.

Walt Whitman has referred to men and women interchangeably in the poem, Leaves of Grass, so it seemed natural to assume that when he said, “What is man anyhow?” that he was also referring to women as well. He followed this simple question with another, “What am I?”, as if you should want to know, and proceeded to question us, the readers, in lowercase letters, “what are you?”, not because he wanted to know us, his readers. He wants us to question ourselves and answer in our own words, otherwise, his words would have no meaning if they don’t invoke you, me, we to find out about us. About who we are as individuals and as people.

 

 

 

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