Walt Whitman - Leaves Of Grass - The Poetry Of Young America!
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Walt Whitman - Leaves Of Grass - The Poetry Of Young America!
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Hi, I\\u2019m Christy Shriver and we\\u2019re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.\\xa0
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I\\u2019m Garry Shriver and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.\\xa0 This episode and next, we tackle one of the most intimidating poets in the American Canon- Walt Whitman.\\xa0 He is the generally accepted and almost uncontested greatest contribution America has made to the great canon of World Literature- the ones\\xa0comprised of those\\xa0that really intimidate- William\\xa0Shakespeare,\\xa0 James\\xa0Joyce, Gustave Flaubert, Vladimir Nabokov, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Pablo Neruda, Ovid,\\xa0Goethe,\\xa0Neitche-, Dante-\\xa0people like that- there are not too many Americans that make that list.\\xa0
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And he does intimidate me- truly.\\xa0 And\\xa0honestly\\xa0he baffles me.\\xa0 The things he says seem easy to understand except I don\\u2019t\\xa0actually understand\\xa0them.\\xa0 They are beautiful and interesting but also uncomfortable.\\xa0 People love his writing and always have, but he\\u2019s also very offensive- and he offends all equally- the prude\\xa0and\\xa0the religious, but also the secular and intellectual-\\xa0he\\xa0offends\\xa0the\\xa0socialist\\xa0as well as the capitalist.\\xa0\\xa0Name an identity- he\\xa0references it and somewhat dismantles it.\\xa0 Primarily because he absolutely rejects\\xa0group\\xa0identities as we think of them today- even in terms of nations\\xa0but in every sense.\\xa0\\xa0To use his words, \\u201cI am\\xa0large;\\xa0I\\xa0contains multitudes\\u201d that\\u2019s a paraphrase from my favorite selection of his work which we\\u2019ll read today.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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For me he\\u2019s such a curious person in part because of the time he emerged in what was called then the American experiment- and I honestly think his perspective has a lot to do\\xa0from this unique\\xa0time period, of course this is not different than\\xa0how I feel about all of the\\xa0writers we discuss.\\xa0 But being born\\xa0in 1819, the United States of America is only 36 years older than he is.\\xa0 His parents were present\\xa0during the\\xa0Revolutionary\\xa0War and\\xa0have a real respect for what people were trying to do here, and how unusual\\xa0and fragile democratic government\\xa0actually\\xa0was\\xa0or really is.\\xa0 We, at least we here in the United States, live with the\\xa0feeling that this country just always has been- that democracy just happens.\\xa0 That elections are just things that have always happened.\\xa0\\xa0Most students today in this country don\\u2019t even think about it.\\xa0Democracy is the normal order in how things occur;\\xa0equality and liberty are just virtues that everyone agrees are important- by one definition or another.\\xa0\\xa0But None of this was reality and common understanding in 1819\\xa0in almost any part of the planet\\xa0Earth.\\xa0 And most of the world looked at the United States with contempt- a bunch of non-educated hillbillies living\\xa0in some weird schemata that wouldn\\u2019t stand the test of time.\\xa0 There was no culture in this country, by international standards.\\xa0 We had no great art, no history to speak of,\\xa0we weren\\u2019t writing great philosophies\\xa0or composing great music.\\xa0 We had not produced a Voltaire, or a Jean-Jacques Rousseau.\\xa0 We had no Catherine the Great\\xa0or\\xa0Cosimo\\xa0De Medici\\xa0sponsoring great artistic ventures.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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And\\xa0so\\xa0enters Walt Whitman- to which he would say, and did say-\\xa0whoopdeedoo\\xa0Europe- you are correct- we have none of that, and I celebrate that we don\\u2019t.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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I want to begin with this famous poem by Whitman.\\xa0 Of course, it\\u2019s from\\xa0Leaves of Grass\\xa0which we\\u2019ll introduce in a second, but if you are reading the Death bed edition which is the\\xa0one\\xa0I have- again I\\u2019ll explain all that later, it\\u2019s\\xa0in the\\xa0beginning,\\xa0that very first\\xa0part called\\xa0\\u201cInscriptions\\u201d.\\xa0 Let me read\\xa0Whitman\\u2019s famous\\xa0words\\xa0on America.\\xa0\\xa0
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I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,\\xa0
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,\\xa0
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,\\xa0
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,\\xa0
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,\\xa0
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,\\xa0
The wood-cutter\\u2019s song, the\\xa0ploughboy\\u2019s\\xa0on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,\\xa0
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,\\xa0
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to\\xa0none\\xa0else,\\xa0
The day what belongs to the day\\u2014at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,\\xa0
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.\\xa0
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Garry, I want to hear your first thoughts when you read this poem.\\xa0\\xa0Let me start by saying, notice how celebratory it is.\\xa0 America is singing carols- not dirges- and the song of the American is the song of hard work- not\\xa0the Vienna Philharmonic- which by the way was founded in 1842.\\xa0\\xa0America was not building art, as commonly understood- we\\xa0were\\xa0building lives- free lives- lives where people lived with the choices they made, but they got to make their own choices.\\xa0 This is very different than anywhere else- places more cultured, more sophisticated, more idealized.\\xa0 We\\xa0don\\u2019t have serfs working for\\xa0great lords or ladies.\\xa0 We have no jet-setters so to speak- or\\xa0people of privilege or high cultural standing- In America\\xa0we work\\xa0hard,\\xa0 but\\xa0we work\\xa0for ourselves-and everyone does it- and that is something we\\u2019re proud of.\\xa0\\xa0There is no shame in\\xa0labor.\\xa0 There\\u2019s a song to that.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Yes, it\\u2019s very much about homestead.\\xa0 It\\u2019s about individualism and taking responsibility\\xa0to create it-\\xa0About creating your own little corner of the world.\\xa0\\xa0This is exactly the idea that Alexis\\xa0DeToqueville\\xa0referenced in his important work\\xa0Democracy in America.\\xa0 As a Frenchman, he was totally surprised and impressed with this very thing that Whitman is talking about.\\xa0\\xa0This poem is a complete refutation of the English feudal system and that\\u2019s what\\xa0Northerners\\xa0loved about it.\\xa0\\xa0In the South, and what was so offensive to Whitman when he spent time in New Orleans was\\xa0that\\xa0they were trying to recreate that hierarchal system where some people outrank others\\xa0to the point of claiming they weren\\u2019t even human- and that, to Whitman, was\\xa0the complete opposite of\\xa0what the entire American Experiment was about.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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His parents were clearly on team America-\\xa0he had\\xa0one brother named George Washington Whitman, another named Thomas Jefferson Whitman and a third named\\xa0Andrew Jackson Whitman.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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\\xa0Ha- I guess that IS a statement.\\xa0 This unique time of history in which he lived allowed Whitman to see such great contrasts in America- he saw democracy and success found in personal effort.\\xa0 He saw vast amounts of unpolluted natural beauty, but he also saw evil at its most deranged, and pain and loneliness at its most intense.\\xa0 We\\xa0have to\\xa0remember that his parents lived through the glorious revolutionary war, but he lived during the treacherous Civil War- and his perspective and life experience is very different. He admired the expanse of the West. He loved the natural beauty of this continent, but he also was horrified and despised to its core \\u2013 the. National plague that has defined and still defines so much of the American story- this legacy of slavery- his views on such, btw- got him fired by more than one employer, btw.\\xa0 At this time, newspapers were owned and operated by political parties, and he was always slipping in views that the political operatives didn\\u2019t like- so he got fired.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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HA!\\xa0 Well, I guess some things never change.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0One thing that baffles and almost offends most academics is\\xa0Whitman\\u2019s\\xa0absolute\\xa0nothing of an academic\\xa0background.\\xa0 His parents were basically illiterate, his family was excessively large and chaotic;\\xa0today we would say\\xa0dysfunctional.\\xa0 He had one\\xa0sibling that\\xa0actually had\\xa0to be\\xa0committed\\xa0to an insane asylum.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0His formal education was inadequate\\xa0because\\xa0his father sent him out to work.\\xa0 It\\u2019s so ironic that the greatest American poet had no\\xa0formal tutelage\\xa0to except what he scrounged up for himself in his own self-taught way\\xa0by reading in libraries and attending operas.\\xa0\\xa0He didn\\u2019t have that option.\\xa0\\xa0His father was also\\xa0pretty much a\\xa0financial\\xa0failure.\\xa0 He\\xa0was a carpenter by\\xa0trade, but\\xa0had\\xa0also had\\xa0a\\xa0little\\xa0property.\\xa0 His father\\xa0speculated in real estate after moving to Brooklyn, NY, but wasn\\u2019t all that great at business and ended up losing\\xa0most of it.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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And of course, that\\u2019s the problem with the land of opportunity- you are kind of out there on your own to make it or break it.\\xa0 And people were very aware of this.\\xa0 There was no guarantee, at all, that America would even survive as a country.\\xa0 It was still an experiment.\\xa0 No one else was living like this.\\xa0 Europeans had monarchies; the South American countries were colonies.\\xa0 Our neighbors to the East were living in empires.\\xa0 Only this little backward nation in a corner of North America was trying to do this weird thing.\\xa0
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And\\xa0Whitman loved it.\\xa0 He really did.\\xa0\\xa0He loved the land.\\xa0 He loved the cities.\\xa0 He loved the people.\\xa0\\xa0He\\xa0spent the first 36 years\\xa0of his life walking around and observing life, mostly in New York City and Long Island (which was NOT a suburb of New York at that time).\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 He loved the libraries and spent tons of time there reading.\\xa0 He loved music, especially opera, which we\\u2019ll notice has a strong influence on how he writes.\\xa0\\xa0He loved learning,\\xa0listening\\xa0and observing, and\\xa0this is what he wrote about.\\xa0 I heard one lecturer say that he was the first non-blind poet- which I thought was weird and what made it stand out.\\xa0 But what the professor meant was that most poets were writing about their inner life,\\xa0things from their imagination- think Edgar Allan Poe and\\xa0\\u201cThe Raven\\u201d, but Whitman, in many cases, was transcribing things that he was seeing\\xa0and hearing\\xa0in urban life- and this was very different.\\xa0\\xa0He would catalogue it- to use a word that is often used to describe this thing that we just saw him do in the poem we just read, make these long lists of details in these long sentences.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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I also want to point out that it was this desire to\\xa0self-educate\\xa0that led him, like many of his day, to be\\xa0influenced and\\xa0challenged\\xa0by\\xa0the great Ralph Waldo Emerson.\\xa0We\\u2019ll do an entire episode or more than one of him, but Emerson\\u2019s non-conventional ideas about nature and the soul and our inter-connectedness, although ideas that were\\xa0commonly accepted in the far East, were new on this continent.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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True- well,\\xa0In\\xa01855, something happened.\\xa0\\xa0Whitman self-publishes the book\\xa0Leaves of Grass.\\xa0\\xa0This first version was only 95 pages long- that\\u2019s compared to the death bed one which has\\xa0415 in my copy.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0There was no author\\u2019s name\\xa0on the cover.\\xa0 Instead,\\xa0on the first page\\xa0there was this\\xa0image of a man in\\xa0laborer\\u2019s\\xa0clothes.\\xa0 Whitman only reveals that he\\u2019s the author through one of the first unnamed poems\\xa0calling himself, \\u201cWalt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a\\xa0kosmos.\\u201d\\xa0
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If you look up the word\\xa0Kosmos\\xa0in the dictionary it will tell you that that word means-\\xa0a complex orderly self-inclusive system-\\xa0which is interesting to think about someone describing themselves as-\\xa0but it\\u2019s a Greek word.\\xa0 It\\u2019s also a Biblical word- which is how I believe Whitman would know it.\\xa0 It\\xa0is used in the New Testament to\\xa0mean\\xa0the universe or\\xa0the creation as a whole- that\\u2019s how Whitman defines himself in this poem \\u201cSong of\\xa0Myself\\u201d\\xa0\\xa0and\\xa0the context of how he wants us to understand his work and who we are as individuals.\\xa0 We too are\\xa0kosmos.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Well, it didn\\u2019t start out very cosmic- that\\u2019s for sure.\\xa0 It\\u2019s a miracle\\xa0Leaves of Grass\\xa0came to be read by anyone.\\xa0 He self-published it, literally type-setting it himself.\\xa0\\xa0He printed\\xa0795 copies and sold almost none of them.\\xa0\\xa0
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Don\\u2019t you wish you had one of those originals?\\xa0
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I know right, well, people do.\\xa0 In case you\\u2019re in the market, there are 200 that are still around, and in 2014, one sold at Christie\\u2019s for\\xa0$305,000.\\xa0 It\\u2019s so ironic- Whitman struggled financially until the day he died and celebrated working people in everything he wrote.\\xa0 What do you think he would think of that, Christy?\\xa0
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I have zero doubt, he would love it.\\xa0 Totally.\\xa0\\xa0Beyond being the book\\u2019s publisher, he also was the book\\u2019s publicist.\\xa0\\xa0He sent copies to the leading poets of the day trying to drum up some good reviews.\\xa0 Whittier was said to\\xa0thrown\\xa0his copy into the fire he was so offended and outraged- the homoerotic imagery was more than he could handle, but\\xa0Ralph Waldo Emerson saw it for what it was and wrote Whitman back an amazing letter of encouragement.\\xa0 Let me quote Emerson, \\u201cI am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of Leaves of Grass. I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.\\u201d\\xa0 And of course, to this day, many\\xa0world\\xa0class literary scholars still think this about Whitman.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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What I find\\xa0humorous\\xa0about Whitman is that he wrote glowing reviews of his book himself secretly and published them\\xa0as if they were written by other people.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Yeah, he was working the influencer thing way back before that was a thing-\\xa0He also, printed Emerson\\u2019s actual glowing review when he reprinted the book in 1856, except he didn\\u2019t get Emerson\\u2019s permission to do so.\\xa0 He put Emerson\\u2019s words, \\u201cI greet you at the beginning of a great career\\u201d on the spine of the book and he published the entire letter with a long reply\\xa0andress\\xa0to Dear Master.\\u201d\\xa0 It was NOT received well by Emerson.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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I can see that as being slightly presumptuous.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Of course\\xa0it was, but I would be tempted as well.\\xa0 He really admired\\xa0Emerson,\\xa0in fact this is what he said about Emerson\\u2019s influence on his writing.\\xa0\\u202f\\u201cI was simmering, simmering, simmering; Emerson brought me to a boil.\\u201d\\xa0
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I want us to read the very first part of Song of Myself which was the first poem\\xa0
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I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,\\xa0
And what I assume you shall assume,\\xa0For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.\\xa0
I\\xa0loafe\\xa0and invite my soul,\\xa0I lean and\\xa0loafe\\xa0at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.\\xa0
My tongue, every atom of my blood,\\xa0form\'d\\xa0from this soil, this air,\\xa0Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,\\xa0I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,\\xa0Hoping to cease not till death.\\xa0
Creeds and schools in abeyance,\\xa0Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,\\xa0I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,\\xa0Nature without check with original energy.\\xa0
This is what I mean when I say, it seems like it\\u2019s very simple to understand except I\\u2019ve read this\\xa0poem hundreds of times and am still slightly confused as to what he means.\\xa0 The term for this is ambiguous- he makes you, as a reader, put your own interpretation, put yourself into the lines to force the meaning out of it.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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True, and if you take it at face value just superficially, it may seem that this is a narcissist celebrating egotism, but\\xa0it clearly doesn\\u2019t.\\xa0 It also could be misunderstood to mean he celebrates idleness and laziness, but that doesn\\u2019t seem to be right either.\\xa0
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Exactly- I love\\xa0these first lines.\\xa0\\xa0First of all, they are so iconic.\\xa0 One thing Whitman is known for besides the cataloguing which I mentioned when we\\xa0read\\xa0I Hear America Singing,\\xa0is this thing that today we call Free Verse. Whitman\\xa0is often given credit for inventing the concept, although that is debatable.\\xa0 But what is obvious\\xa0is that there is no rhyme or meter of any kind at all and there isn\\u2019t supposed to be.\\xa0 He doesn\\u2019t want anything to rhyme.\\xa0 Instead, he wants to write in these\\xa0really long\\xa0sentences.\\xa0 Every stanza\\xa0is a single sentence, and he is going to do that through the entire poem.\\xa0 Whitman felt you couldn\\u2019t get your idea out in these\\xa0little short\\xa0phrases of iambic tetrameter like his Whittier, the guy who threw his book in the fire, was doing.\\xa0 Whitman\\xa0wanted, above all else, to create a sense of intimacy between himself and the person reading- and\\xa0so he wanted to make sure you could follow his idea- from idea to idea.\\xa0 He got this idea from two places- first he copied the idea from the one book he had been familiar with since his childhood- the King James Version of the Bible.\\xa0 He copied the style like you see in the Psalms or even the Sermon on the Mount.\\xa0 He also got the idea from the opera- if you think about opera- you also have these long phrases-\\xa0that end with things like figaro\\xa0figaro\\xa0fiiiigaro-\\xa0\\xa0
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Is that your impression of the opera?\\xa0
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Well, as you know, I enjoy the opera.\\xa0 I haven\\u2019t always, to be honest.\\xa0 A few years ago, my good friend, I\\u2019ve mentioned her on the podcast before, Millington AP Literature/ Lang teacher Amy\\xa0Nolette, coerced me to attend with her- and I did.\\xa0 She is an accomplished\\xa0musician\\xa0so she really taught me how to admire what was going on- and we went every year for several years until Covid hit.\\xa0\\xa0But, having said that, I\\u2019m\\xa0fairly sure, that\\u2019s my best attempt at singing opera.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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But back to Whitman, so one of the first things that Whitman is famous for today is this concept of Free Verse- it was innovative then, but now,\\xa0it doesn\\u2019t seem that big of a deal.\\xa0\\xa0That was a big deal, but a bigger deal to Whitman were the ideas he was putting out there.\\xa0
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I celebrate myself- not because I\\u2019m so important- not because I have all this amazing heritage\\xa0or skill or anything- I celebrate myself because I have an essence that is 100% unique to me.\\xa0 Let\\u2019s read it again.\\xa0\\xa0
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I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,\\xa0
And what I assume you shall assume,\\xa0For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.\\xa0
It\\u2019s not accidental that he throws in there that scientific language.\\xa0\\xa0And this is where he will offend the capitalist or competitive side of us.\\xa0 He makes this bold assertion- in this poetic way- to say- what, do you think you\\u2019re that much better than me- you are made of the exact same material I am- we\\u2019re both made of atoms- science teaches us that-\\xa0and for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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In some sense it\\u2019s\\xa0the\\xa0I\\u2019m okay- you\\u2019re okay\\xa0attitude, but\\xa0taking it up a notch- I celebrate myself- you celebrate yourself.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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For sure, and something we all give lip-service to\\xa0today\\xa0but no one actually really believes.\\xa0 I have a creative writing assignment that I ask my students to do every year.\\xa0 We take another Whitman poem called \\u201cThere was a Child Went Forth\\u201d that talks about identity and the physical objects and places that influence who you are- it\\u2019s a wonderful poem, anyway, I ask my students to write a poem using Whitman\\u2019s style and technique\\xa0about THEIR lives.\\xa0 I tell them we\\u2019re going to read them in small groups, and if they like what they wrote and feel\\xa0comfortable,\\xa0 we\\xa0are going to print them and put them outside my door in the hallway for everything to read.\\xa0 At\\xa0first\\xa0they are very\\xa0very\\xa0resistant to the idea.\\xa0 They all hate it- first because it\\u2019s writing, secondly because it\\u2019s poetry- but mostly because they don\\u2019t think they want their lives sprawled on the hallway of the school.\\xa0 I had a sweet darling child,\\xa0actually a\\xa0quiet student, raise her hand in protest and\\xa0literallty\\xa0say, I don\\u2019t want to do this.\\xa0 I can\\u2019t do this.\\xa0 All I do is go to school and work- there is nothing interesting at all about my life.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Ha!\\xa0 She seems to have missed the point.\\xa0 She didn\\u2019t want to celebrate herself and she\\u2019s exactly the kind of person Whitman loved celebrating.\\xa0
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Exactly-\\xa0and lots of my kids are like that- they work at Sonic, Chick-Fila- the mall-\\xa0mowing lawns- but in her case, it\\xa0turns out she is way more\\xa0interesting\\xa0and her poem is on the wall right now.\\xa0 I may take a picture and post it on our website, so you can see\\xa0them all.\\xa0 I\\u2019m very proud of my kiddos- not just because they produced good poems but because lots of them are hardworking.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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I will\\xa0say,\\xa0that next phrase leads us to think that Whitman is a lazy person.\\xa0 He extols the virtue of loafing.\\xa0 But of course, what I know about his biography which we\\u2019ll get more into next week when we talk about his experiences in the Civil War and all of that, but Whitman was the very opposite of lazy.\\xa0 He was an extremely physical hard worker.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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True- Let\\u2019s read the lines you\\u2019re talking\\xa0about..\\xa0
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I\\xa0loafe\\xa0and invite my soul,\\xa0I lean and\\xa0loafe\\xa0at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.\\xa0
When he says I loaf and invite my soul- he\\u2019s getting into the philosopher side of him that is so complex and we really don\\u2019t even have time to go there today, but it\\u2019s that old idea of contemplating- today what we call mindfulness.\\xa0 And I\\xa0have to\\xa0admit, I\\u2019m not good at this.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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He really believes in mindfulness\\xa0although he didn\\u2019t know we renamed his concept for him.\\xa0\\xa0Loafe- meaning chill out- turn off the phone, turn off the tv, turn off the computer and invite your soul into yourself.\\xa0 Chill out!!!\\xa0 Stop and observe a spear of grass.\\xa0 Just look at it- let your mind go there- let it focus on something small- it\\u2019s the kind of thing\\xa0the yoga instructors keep telling us to do, that we rarely heed but we all know we should.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Exactly- attention and silence- he things they are indispensable to a sane\\xa0existence- and two things I\\u2019m not all that good at.\\xa0\\xa0And then we get to these last two sentences in this opening little poem-\\xa0
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My tongue, every atom of my blood,\\xa0form\'d\\xa0from this soil, this air,\\xa0Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,\\xa0I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,\\xa0Hoping to cease not till death.\\xa0
Creeds and schools in abeyance,\\xa0Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,\\xa0I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,\\xa0Nature without check with original energy.\\xa0
There\\u2019s a lot to say-\\xa0but he\\u2019s going to say- I\\u2019m proud to be from this place- my parents are from this place.\\xa0 I\\u2019m 37- that is not young.\\xa0 He is not a child prodigy- he\\u2019s writing his first book late in life, relatively- he knows that- but he says I\\u2019m in good health and I begin- and I\\u2019m not going to stop until death- I\\u2019m going to live well all the way\\xa0til\\xa0the end- I\\u2019m not going to\\xa0give up on myself.\\xa0 Ever.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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I can see why he\\u2019s inspiring.\\xa0 And I to get back to this idea of origins.\\xa0 You know being an American today is something lots of people are proud of\\xa0(although it is very American to trash our own country) but that\\u2019s part of our national ethos- but even these same people proudly display their passport.\\xa0 America is a powerful country and a rich country.\\xa0 At that\\xa0time\\xa0it was a new country- and new countries\\xa0don\\u2019t have the safety of heritage and sometimes the people who come from them have trouble taking pride in their heritage.\\xa0
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I totally know what you\\u2019re talking about.\\xa0 There was a listener who connected with us through our Instagram page and showed us some beautiful pictures he had taken.\\xa0 They were truly amazing- not only were the mountains\\xa0breathtakingly\\xa0gorgeous in their own right, but\\xa0his eye for framing was genius.\\xa0 I messaged him back and told him what I thought of his art.\\xa0 We went back and\\xa0forth\\xa0and I finally asked him.\\xa0 Where are you from? And he would never tell me.\\xa0 He said he was from Central Asia\\xa0and so\\xa0fort\\xa0which I\\xa0eventually gathered he is from\\xa0one of the\\xa0new countries formally part of the USSR.\\xa0\\xa0 I\\u2019m not saying he was ashamed of where he was from, I didn\\u2019t get that sense, but he seemed intimated that we were from America- a place\\xa0that seems so far away and idealized from his point of view.\\xa0 Whitman would tell this young man-\\xa0you\\u2019re from that wonderful\\xa0air,\\xa0 from\\xa0wonderful heritage, from atoms just like ours- not just accept it celebrate it.\\xa0
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Because, as I read onward, he seems to imply, this is the attitude that breeds great things that breeds beautiful things but if it doesn\\u2019t- that\\u2019s okay as well- keep going all the way\\xa0til\\xa0death- compete not with others but with yourself- as he goes to self- publish the same book 8 more times until he\\xa0does\\xa0.\\xa0
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Ha!\\xa0 I guess that\\u2019s true.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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I want to read the last sentence again of that opening because he sets up a lot of the rest of his writings with something of a warning-\\xa0
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Creeds and schools in abeyance,\\xa0Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,\\xa0I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,\\xa0Nature without check with original energy.\\xa0
Again- that language\\xa0seems simple but at the same time I\\xa0have to\\xa0really work at what he\\u2019s going to say.\\xa0 But I have an interpretation-\\xa0he\\u2019s going to say this- put away your school learning and your religious training when you read this.\\xa0 Sit back because I\\u2019m going to say some\\xa0really hard\\xa0things- that\\u2019s what he means with that word \\u201chazard\\u201d- but they are not\\xa0mean- they are natural- it\\u2019s about the energy of being alive.\\xa0 It\\u2019s the beauty of being you, of being a physical body, of being an inter-connected spirit\\xa0with connections to other people and part of this physical space.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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And of course, it\\u2019s that celebration of the physical body that kept getting him censored. Even Ralph Waldo Emerson later when he was reproducing his book begged him to self-censor\\xa0what was thinly veiled\\xa0homo-erotic passages, but he just wouldn\\u2019t.\\xa0 He didn\\u2019t see them as erotic- he\\xa0didn\\u2019t even see sex like that.\\xa0 For him sexuality and the physical body\\xa0had a self-evidence important place in our lives and had to be brought out in the open- be it a hazard or not.\\xa0 And again,\\xa0it\\xa0kind of was a hazard, he lost a really good job in Washington at one point because his boss found a copy of leaves of Grass in his desk and found it obscene.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Poor guy- well, that takes us\\xa0to the title- Leaves of Grass- and what that even means.\\xa0 I mentioned that Whitman was famous for his style or innovative literary technique, he has been increasingly praised for his innovative ideas about the body, the self, consciousness- he was one of the first America poets to even write about consciousness- the other one btw is Emily Dickinson.\\xa0 But probably the thing I like the best about Whitman, and this is me, personally, is his ability to really capture a wonderful metaphor.\\xa0 He could just say things in an understandable and pretty way- and this is what poetry really is all about- for my money.\\xa0
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This phrase that is the title \\u2013 Leaves of Grass- it means something.\\xa0 First let\\u2019s read the\\xa0first\\xa0part of Song of Myself that talks about grass- I\\u2019d ask you to read all of\\xa0it\\xa0but I think we might get lost.\\xa0Song of Myself number 6.\\xa0
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A child said\\xa0What is the grass?\\xa0fetching it to me with full hands;\\xa0How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.\\xa0I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.\\xa0\\xa0Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,\\xa0A scented gift and remembrancer designedly\\xa0dropt,\\xa0Bearing the owner\'s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say\\xa0Whose?\\xa0\\xa0Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.\\xa0\\xa0Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,\\xa0And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,\\xa0Growing among black folks as among white,\\xa0Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.\\xa0
And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.\\xa0
When Whitman loafs around and stares at grass- he sees a picture of America- or a picture of any democracy\\xa0any group of people that understand that they are one\\xa0poeple- of which America was the example he knew, but he\\u2019s not exclusionary by any means.\\xa0 He says, look, every single blade of grass is totally different\\xa0and yet in some sense the same.\\xa0 He calls it a uniform hieroglyphic- what an interesting turn of phrase.\\xa0\\xa0It\\u2019s and I use his words here \\u201cblack folks as among white,\\xa0kanuck, Tuckahoe,\\xa0Congreeman, Cuff, I give to\\xa0me the same, I receive them the same.\\u201d\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
For Whitman, the picture of America was a field of grass.\\xa0 If we look at it, we see hopeful green woven stuff. The handkerchief of the Lord- but if we look at it\\xa0closely\\xa0we\\u2019re all so different- and both things are truly beautiful.\\xa0 It\\u2019s a paradox.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0He goes on to say, it\\u2019s from the land, it\\u2019s made up of the dust that is made up of the people of the land- I know it gets philosophical- and you can take it as far deep as you want to plunge with him.\\xa0\\xa0
But you don\\u2019t have to get all that deep or esoteric if you don\\u2019t want to.\\xa0 You can just lay on the\\xa0grass, and\\xa0smell it and enjoy it- loaf on it- to use his words.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
You know what I like about that entire image and about Whitman\\u2019s entire philosophy.\\xa0 He absolutely spoke of diversity, but he did not celebrate diversity- not like we think of doing that today.\\xa0 He celebrates unity- and that\\u2019s why this metaphor is the title.\\xa0 Whitman had a very refined understanding of how easy we can rip each other apart- there is not more divisive time in American history than the 1850s and of course the 1860s- which are the war years.\\xa0\\xa0 He lived through the most divided time in American\\xa0history\\xa0and he could see it coming even in 1855.\\xa0 But during his\\xa0life time, he would see 2.5% of America\\u2019s population die killing each other that was 750,000 people- if we would compare it to the population of America today- that would be over 7 million people.\\xa0 Next week we will see how much he admired Lincoln and what he stood for, but as he understood the American\\xa0experiment,\\xa0 he\\xa0believed in admiring differences and loving them, but identifying as a single group- first and foremost.\\xa0 The dominant image here is of a single landscape- beautiful and united across time and space respecting the past not judging or condemning it- allowing\\xa0ourselves\\xa0to spring from it renewed and refreshed.\\xa0\\xa0
And I think that\\u2019s where the universal appeal\\xa0comes from.\\xa0 If Whitman was just about American patriotism, maybe we\\u2019d like him in this country, but it would feel propagandistic.\\xa0 His ideals are universal and apply to any group of people- anywhere.\\xa0 And he\\u2019s not afraid to admit-some of thing may be self-contradictory.\\xa0 The first time I ever read Whitman was in college.\\xa0 I went to school studying political science, but in my junior year I decided I didn\\u2019t want to do that anymore and I was going to get an English major, well this meant I had to take almost exclusively\\xa0classes that demanded intense reading- and all at the same time.\\xa0 I read so much that they all ran\\xa0together\\xa0and my grades were not as good as they could have been had I had a healthier pace.\\xa0 And in all that reading, not a whole lot stood out- but this little poem by Whitman\\xa0actually did- I underlined it,\\xa0and I kept the trade book I purchased at the time.\\xa0 I\\xa0actually still\\xa0have it after all these years and so many moves.\\xa0\\xa0In this little section, Whitman is talking in that intimate way that he talks to his reader- it\\u2019s personal- it\\u2019s in the second person- and at that time of my life- it was a very chaotic time to be honest- I had no idea what I was doing in my life, my mother had recently died, I had very little idea what I should do in the future-\\xa0I had changed directions at the last moment-\\xa0and these famous words just stood out.\\xa0 Will you read them?\\xa0
51\\xa0
The past and present wilt\\u2014I have\\xa0fill\'d\\xa0them, emptied them.\\xa0And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.\\xa0
Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?\\xa0Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,\\xa0(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute\\u202flonger.)\\xa0
Do I contradict myself?\\xa0Very well\\xa0then\\xa0I contradict myself,\\xa0(I am large, I contain multitudes.)\\xa0
I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.\\xa0
Who has done his day\'s work? who will soonest be through with\\u202fhis supper?\\xa0Who wishes to walk with me?\\xa0
Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?\\xa0
Christy- what did that mean to you.\\xa0
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I really have no idea.\\xa0 I think the line that I liked is the line everyone likes, \\u201cDo I contradict myself?\\xa0 Very well\\xa0then\\xa0I contradict. Myself.\\u201d\\xa0\\xa0 It just made me feel better.\\xa0 I knew I was full of inconsistencies. And Whitman just seemed to be saying- of course you are- everyone is-\\xa0to understand that is\\xa0just being honest.\\xa0\\xa0Let it go.\\xa0\\xa0Just concentrate on what is near- what you\\u2019re doing today, supper- that sort of thing.\\xa0\\xa0If you\\u2019re successful- that\\u2019s great- if you\\u2019re a failure- what difference does it make- we\\u2019re all the same atoms, we\\u2019re all just\\xa0leaves of grass.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0He just made me feel okay.\\xa0
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Which I guess\\xa0that would probably have made him happy-\\xa0the bard of democracy-\\xa0known as the good\\xa0gray\\xa0poet- speaking across time and space\\xa0about what it means to be a human- to be a leaf of grass.\\xa0 Thanks for\\xa0listeninging- next episode- we will delve a little more into his adult life, read some of his most famous poems \\u2013 those tributes to Abraham Lincoln- and finish our discussion of this amazing American.\\xa0 AS always, please\\xa0share about us with a friend or colleague- push out an episode on your social media feed, text an episode to a friend.\\xa0 Connect with us on our social media at\\xa0howtolovelitpodcast\\xa0on\\xa0facebook, Instagram, twitter, or\\xa0Linkedin.\\xa0 If you are a teacher, visit our website for teaching materials that provide ideas scaffolding for using our podcasts as instructional pieces in your classroom.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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Peace out.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0
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