Scarlet's Letter

Virginia on Youtube reading Walt Whitman

Where I read, and show the signs in the video, are on route 24 in Appomattox County, Virginia. Zipcode 24522.

The one thing that really struck me in the reading, made me mad. MADE ME PISSED OFF!! Funny enough, it was in the first few sentences of the entire reading. “The master-songs are ended, and the man/That sang them is a name” from Higgins’ essay just enraged me. It was like someone just read over one of Walt’s poems and didn’t care about the life, the experiences he had, or anything that went in to the poetry. But then I felt better once I read Higgins’ hypothesis of how our Walt became “Walt Whitman”. His poetry being too “pure” is a beautiful way of putting how the poems seem to almost go beyond people today, go over their heads, and that is why he isn’t as “popular” as other poets.

Higgins’ four elements that made Whitman the icon that he is are nicely insightful and agreeable. One thing that I thought of immediately when reading that is how the timing of his poetry and life were quite impeccable for each other. Higgins’ third item in the list is how he made sex and the body possible in poetry. I have to say that if he hadn’t published most of the poems right after the Civil War (specifically the 1867 edition), the criticism of his “bawdy”-ness (no pun intended) would have been so much more and more scathing. Yet, the country’s idea of the human body was still evolving and changing rapidly; especially with the frankness naked soldiers had to be dealt with. There was no point in trying to be “appropriate” when a man had shrapnel covering his thighs and crotch area.

Using that as a segway, Pound’s chapter was hilarious! But I loved how he used America’s bad things, like the crudeness and hollow feelings that exist in this nation, both in a physical/geographical sense of the word and in the people. It was beautifully written to be realistic, complementary, and rude at the same time. I totally agree with Pound’s overall theme; there is no other American poet who captures the rawness of the nation. He represents the different areas, he mentions the forests, the streets, the beaches, and the people. He keeps most of the poems as if the reader were his eye. His descriptions of the scenes he writes about create a very distinct feeling for the reader; it is intimate.

In the selected readings on the blog, Hart Crane seemed to most channel Whitman. The punctuation, rhythm, and word usage screamed Whitmaniac I’ve never read Allen Ginsberg before, but America made me want to go buy a book of his. Especially America being so scathingly judgemental and ugly. Yet, people are that. People are beautiful too, and maybe because I’m such an optimistic people person the poem’s high criticism doesn’t bother me at all. I think Whitman would have appreciated the poem, but probably wished that there had been some sort of positive reinforcement that American, despite it’s issues is beautiful. But maybe, just maybe that is what makes America beautiful; that I can walk down the street and see a homeless person peeing on the sidewalk, that when I turn on the News at 6 there is rarely good news on. We look at those things like they’re ugly, but it’s part of humanity, it’s part of what we are living with today. So to channel Walt, embrace it and the ugliness, according to Higgins, will rectify itself in the future. We just have to keep plugging away.

Longaker’s biography of Whitman’s last months and days brought tears to my eyes. Since reading up on Whitman in the summer to prepare for this seminar, he and my step-father were always paralleling each other. They both were born in to poor, somewhat ignorant families, they each are/were selfless and generous, and they each were large, impressive-looking men in the height of their days. Not only that, he narrowly survived a severe staph infection in his back. While reading Whitaker, it took me back to the hospital rooms at UVA, hearing my dad’s rattled breathing as I would hug him goodbye. Thus, when reading for the entire semester I almost envisioned Whitman and my dad as friends, or parallels; I could see them doing what the other has done, whether it’s that which I’ve read about (Whitman) or which I’ve seen and lived with (my dad).

I started to get a catch in my throat while reading “On the Beach at Night”. If you couldn’t tell through my sentiments earlier (in posts, class, etc), I’m very close to my stepfather. In fact, I call him daddy and I truly feel like he was the best father anyone could have been to me. After reading Whitaker, I marked all the poems written after 1867 to read first since they were new to the 1891-92 edition. The title “On the Beach at Night” instantly intrigued me because I love the beach, my dad loves our time share and misses the beach house he used to have. Whitman’s imagery of the poem of the little girl holding onto her fathers hand sends my heart reeling.

On a more substantial note, I think Leaves of Grass was much like Whitman. Ever evolving, he did not stay the same for very long. He was more stable and consistent than say, Madonna, but I almost feel like when I am reading the different editions, he changed his persona just slightly. The reader can tell by the slight shift in style, punctuation, addition and subtraction of lines, and the tone of his later poems that he seems to have created a more appreciative persona. In the 1855 edition he is celebrating life, his words create a vigor leaping off the page to the reader. In the 1867 edition, it become slightly slower, his wording becomes more “correct” for the beat and tone of the poems. Finally, this 1891-92 version becomes a reminder to BE, to embody the vigor his 1855 edition evoked. In essence, these editions are a a sort of progression of his life. With the first, he is like an excited college roommate who can’t contain himself with his enthusiasm. You go along with their plans, no matter how hairbrained because they sweep you up into the ideas of it. The middle, 1867 edition is similar to someone realizing they can’t float along forever; at some point you must join the masses in attempts to be politically correct/accepted/maybe even sell out. The last, “death-bed” Leaves of Grass is like watching a grandparent encourage a grandchild to go out there and be crazy, but to appreciate it. To remind them that life IS precious and despite the excitement, there should always be an appreciation and acknowledgement that it is amazing. That we are amazing creatures.

I believe it would be unfair to Whitman to call one of the editions “definitive” and the others not. Despite Whitman’s advocacy for the deathbed edition, it seems impossible to me that a reader could realize all that Leaves of Grass has to offer if only reading one edition. Each edition brings a new era of Whitman and each invites a new, different vision to the reader, depending on edition read.

So yesterday, as I’m waiting at that huge four way intersection at Cowan Blvd. and Carl D. Silver Pkwy in Central Park, I’m looking all around, bored. I love watching the other drivers, too. People watching, in any capacity, is fascinating and hilarious. However, as I’m observing, I look up to see a somewhat gross, dirty looking man staring down at me, probably at my chest, and I immediately turn my head. Disgusted, I refuse to make eye-contact and so when I see his large 18-wheeler pull away, I turn back to watch it amble on. I look up at the smoke stacks and at that second I see the pitchy black smoke come in front of my view of some birds flying in beautiful formation, probably south for the winter.

This juxtaposition, this almost Venn-diagram like situation, immediately made me think of Whitman. As the black smoke dissipated, I could see the birds still flying. I started thinking if he imagined this hustly-bustly, always moving, never stopping to “take the path less traveled” kind of world. I can’t help think that he didn’t. Those traveling birds are probably one of the few things that Whitman would recognize in this day. They are one of the ONLY things in this world that we can look at and know that Emily Dickinson, Thomas Jefferson, Jackie Kennedy-Onassis, the slave in the fields…they all saw that long trek the geese make.

The world has become a different place. What would Walt think of this forum we are using to communicate with three other schools? Just like the smoke creating a haze through which I could barely see the geese, as long as we keep the focus on Whitman, keep the focus on academic analysis, and realizing Whitman as not just a poet but a person who we can all relate to we will succeed in traveling south like the those constant geese. We are simply seeking the warmth that Whitman can bring to our souls, not the southern sun.

Whitman in these readings makes me melancholy and anxious. His interview, the anonymous one, made me curious. I was curious because in the very first sentence, it give the address of Whitman’s brother. Despite it being anonymous, we know the date it was done, the general vicinity in which the area that Whitman was to be visiting. Perhaps when this was published, people didn’t think that connections could be made, but if any one of us wanted to (or if anyone of us were crazy enough), couldn’t we track that address down? Isn’t that the scary part of GoogleEarth? Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that the interviewers candid-tone with release of the address almost makes me want to think that Walt didn’t realize that this was going to be published or something. Maybe I’m being a worry wart. However, his whole tone in the interview is adorable. He seems to be rather self-aware which is something I expected from him, but it was magical reading it from the page, imagining his voice emanating from a snowy beard.

He says that the “great feature of future American poetry is the expression of comradeship.” I wondered while reading if he was truly being “candid” or if he had his publicity, celebrity, and criticism in mind. I would like to think that he was simply stating how he felt about American poetry. He also mentioned how Emerson was pretty much THE MAN…and he used Emerson’s letter of “recommendation” for everything to advocate Leaves of Grass. Knowing that fact, I think the validity of his answers in the interview can be seen as a publicity “stunt” of sorts. I think he definitely believes that comradeship is the future of poetry in this country, but I’m not so sure he thinks that poetry is feudal or antique. Those two words might have had a different meaning then, but now it is not so complimentary.

In this reading of Song of Myself, I can sense an impending doom. Maybe not doom as in death, but I feel like I can sense his restlessness and almost irritation at getting older. He seems to put an emphasis on the NOW. “There as never any more inception than there is now, Nor any more youth or age than there is now,” he is telling his reader to appreciate their youth and vitality. “I am satisfied–I see, dance, laugh, sing” he writes, it’s apparent that we are entering the time of his ailing health, with the past tense quotation.

I wanted to cry at his “Walt Whitman’s Last”. “Every page of my poetic or attempt at poetic utterance therefore smacks of the living physical identity, date, environment, individuality, probably beyond anything known and in style often offensive to the conventions.” I wanted to knight Walt, I want to ring my arms around his neck and make him realize that he is still touching lives, and sometimes being “offensive to the conventions”. This later Song of Myself is more prophetic in a voice that realizes he is talking to the future, the future masses; “See, steamers steaming through my poems,” he wrote. Whitman, after a few critiques of his works must have known that he could possibly be talking to students in classes studying him, 160 years later. His continued use of the past tense in melancholic tones in Leaves of Grass trails a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. I am now yearning for a more vigorous, bodily Whitman. He’s still there, I know.