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Leaves of Grass
A collection of quintessentially American poems, the seminal work of one of the most influential writers of the nineteenth century.
624 pages, Paperback
First published July 4, 1855
About the author
Walt Whitman
1,613 books4,880 followersWalter Whitman (1819-1892) was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.
Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War in addition to publishing his poetry. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842).
After working as clerk, teacher, journalist and laborer, Whitman wrote his masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, pioneering free verse poetry in a humanistic celebration of humanity, in 1855. Emerson, whom Whitman revered, said of Leaves of Grass that it held "incomparable things incomparably said." During the Civil War, Whitman worked as an army nurse, later writing Drum Taps (1865) and Memoranda During the War (1867). His health compromised by the experience, he was given work at the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C. After a stroke in 1873, which left him partially paralyzed, Whitman lived his next 20 years with his brother, writing mainly prose, such as Democratic Vistas (1870). Leaves of Grass was published in nine editions, with Whitman elaborating on it in each successive edition. In 1881, the book had the compliment of being banned by the commonwealth of Massachusetts on charges of immorality. A good friend of Robert Ingersoll, Whitman was at most a Deist who scorned religion. D. 1892.
More: http://www.whitmanarchive.org/
http://philosopedia.org/index.php/Wal...
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/126
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/w...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whi...
http://www.poemhunter.com/walt-whitman/
Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War in addition to publishing his poetry. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842).
After working as clerk, teacher, journalist and laborer, Whitman wrote his masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, pioneering free verse poetry in a humanistic celebration of humanity, in 1855. Emerson, whom Whitman revered, said of Leaves of Grass that it held "incomparable things incomparably said." During the Civil War, Whitman worked as an army nurse, later writing Drum Taps (1865) and Memoranda During the War (1867). His health compromised by the experience, he was given work at the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C. After a stroke in 1873, which left him partially paralyzed, Whitman lived his next 20 years with his brother, writing mainly prose, such as Democratic Vistas (1870). Leaves of Grass was published in nine editions, with Whitman elaborating on it in each successive edition. In 1881, the book had the compliment of being banned by the commonwealth of Massachusetts on charges of immorality. A good friend of Robert Ingersoll, Whitman was at most a Deist who scorned religion. D. 1892.
More: http://www.whitmanarchive.org/
http://philosopedia.org/index.php/Wal...
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/126
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/w...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whi...
http://www.poemhunter.com/walt-whitman/
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March 22, 2019
Don't pay attention to me, I'm currently high on poetry.
August 18, 2023
عنوان ساحر
تقول رضا بإحساس عميق
نابع من نفس جميلة تذوقت القصائد مثلما تذوقت طعم القهوة المركز
بدرجة السكر الخفيفة التي لا تغيّرها
هذه الصورة التي أحبها لها
وهذا الصوت الذي يظل مترددا في نفسي
أسألها عن مصدر سحر العنوان
ترفع الفنجان لتلامسه شفتاها
وتقول بهدوء
أوراق يا برشومي
وماذا يصل بالجمال إلينا سوى الأوراق
جسد الأرض ينبت قصائده الخضراء
جمال عضوي خالص بلا إضافات ضارة
أوراق الأرض تراها الكائنات كلها
يسري لونها الأخضر في بصيرة الرائي
يتنفس الأثير عطرها ويمنحه لنا جميعا
تأكل منها الخراف والماعز والإبل والطيور
مأدبة كونية
مثل الشعر الذي ينبت من جسد مشاعرنا وأذهاننا
تجمعنا الكلمات عبر المكتبات
أليس العنوان ساحرا يا صديقي؟ كأنك ترى لون الحياة في القصائد
تتذوقها مثل بن القهوة
مثل سكر القصب والبنجر
تلمسها فتحس بخطوطها
شعرية الكون في صور والت وايتمان
قراءة رضا للعنوان تترك أثرا في نفسي فأطلب منها الديوان
الذي اختاره سعدي يوسف من أشعار وايتمان
تقول لي وطعم قهوتها يسري في سمعي
أتمنى أن تكتب عنه يا نصر ، ثم أناقشك يعد أن أقرأ مع أصدقاء جودريدز ما ستضيفه
أوراق وإيتمان تمتد في ساحة الوقت
صورة عالم تتجاور فيه الطببعة والصناعة
أشجار ومداخن
بحار وبواخر
مد يرتفع ونبض يتدفق في ثقافة الغرب
يعالجها بطاقته الجديدة التي تحول الأفكار المجردة لسلوك لا يهدأ
مشهد الصورة الشاملة المتحركة الحافلة بعناصر لا حصر ل��ا
سينما ما قبل السينما تنعكس في شاشة وإيتمان الخضراء
الكلام كصوت الراوي المصاحب الذي يدلك على مساحات شاسعة
تستوعب معطيات العصر القادم
صور متفرقة يجمعها إحساس الصوت الواثق المعتز بواقعه وحلمه
متناثرات يجمعها عقد المشاعر
الشعر هو إدراكنا للظواهر
وشاعرنا هنا يكتب بعين مخرج يوجه الكاميرا لمشهد كلي يلتقطه من سياقه كما يراه في نفسه ويرسله في فضاء القصائد لينقل رؤيته الجمالية لمتذوقي الكلمات
يحتفي برؤية تصل الخيال بالواقع
في خيط الوعي
ورنين الأصوات المتدفقة بالحركة
مع خلفية تحتضن العقل الأوروبي
وتعيد برمجته في حوار جدلي
تنطلق فيه دراما الفعل
ويتواري تنظير المغرقين في التجريد
زهو القوة والمغامرة والانفتاح الكوني بعد صراع داخلي وخارجي طويل انتهى بصيغة الديمقراطية الليبرالية وغرف رجال الأعمال
وإيتمان ناطق بهذه الأجواء
يرى الصورة الكلية التي يسري صوتها بداخله وحوله
لكن
ها قد أتيت للانتقاد يا نصر
هكذا تقول رضا بعدما أقول لكن
كلمة لكن أيقونة الاعتراض
هكذا تسميها رضا
لكن الصورة الكلية التي يديرها مخرج لم تظهر السينما عنده في القرن التاسع عشر
تختفي منها التفاصيل العميقة
لا توجد متناقضات النفس وتعقيداتها
لا توجد مساحات الصراع الحواري المتعدد الذي يتجاوز الأحادية
ضفيرة النسيج النصي تكاد تخلو من الآخر
ديمقراطية الصورة لا تتوغل في خفايا الاختلاف
تمر سريعا على العمق النفسي والتركيب المعقد لمكونات الشعور والأفكار
الكامير الشعرية لهذا الصوت الشعري الناطق باسم العالم الجديد
تكتفي بعرض الظواهر كما تراها على السطح
أو كما تريد أن تراها
اوراق العشب عنوان عبقري بالفعل، صاغه والت وإيتمان بخبرة إدراكية وحس جمالي، ليمنح الشعر، والفنون بالطبع وظيفة حيوية، الفنون تكتشف مكنوناتنا الفطرية، تطلق طاقتنا الكونية، تستخلص أحلامنا الكامن
الفن شجرة ننتمي إليها لأنها نابعة من إنسانيتنا العابرة للعصور
شجرة نامية من ينابيع رغباتنا وإراداتنا واشواقنا
شجرة ضاربة في أرض خصبة بالتطلعات والرؤي والآمال والخوف والشفقة والفضول
شجرة تتساقط المعاني من ندى اوراقها لتنشر العشب في مساحات الجفاف وصحارى الفراغ
عشب وإيتمان هو البساط الإنساني المشترك
وهو الغذاء الشعوري الذي نستلهمه في إذكاء عواطفنا تجاه عشق العالم
تقول رضا بإحساس عميق
نابع من نفس جميلة تذوقت القصائد مثلما تذوقت طعم القهوة المركز
بدرجة السكر الخفيفة التي لا تغيّرها
هذه الصورة التي أحبها لها
وهذا الصوت الذي يظل مترددا في نفسي
أسألها عن مصدر سحر العنوان
ترفع الفنجان لتلامسه شفتاها
وتقول بهدوء
أوراق يا برشومي
وماذا يصل بالجمال إلينا سوى الأوراق
جسد الأرض ينبت قصائده الخضراء
جمال عضوي خالص بلا إضافات ضارة
أوراق الأرض تراها الكائنات كلها
يسري لونها الأخضر في بصيرة الرائي
يتنفس الأثير عطرها ويمنحه لنا جميعا
تأكل منها الخراف والماعز والإبل والطيور
مأدبة كونية
مثل الشعر الذي ينبت من جسد مشاعرنا وأذهاننا
تجمعنا الكلمات عبر المكتبات
أليس العنوان ساحرا يا صديقي؟ كأنك ترى لون الحياة في القصائد
تتذوقها مثل بن القهوة
مثل سكر القصب والبنجر
تلمسها فتحس بخطوطها
شعرية الكون في صور والت وايتمان
قراءة رضا للعنوان تترك أثرا في نفسي فأطلب منها الديوان
الذي اختاره سعدي يوسف من أشعار وايتمان
تقول لي وطعم قهوتها يسري في سمعي
أتمنى أن تكتب عنه يا نصر ، ثم أناقشك يعد أن أقرأ مع أصدقاء جودريدز ما ستضيفه
أوراق وإيتمان تمتد في ساحة الوقت
صورة عالم تتجاور فيه الطببعة والصناعة
أشجار ومداخن
بحار وبواخر
مد يرتفع ونبض يتدفق في ثقافة الغرب
يعالجها بطاقته الجديدة التي تحول الأفكار المجردة لسلوك لا يهدأ
مشهد الصورة الشاملة المتحركة الحافلة بعناصر لا حصر ل��ا
سينما ما قبل السينما تنعكس في شاشة وإيتمان الخضراء
الكلام كصوت الراوي المصاحب الذي يدلك على مساحات شاسعة
تستوعب معطيات العصر القادم
صور متفرقة يجمعها إحساس الصوت الواثق المعتز بواقعه وحلمه
متناثرات يجمعها عقد المشاعر
الشعر هو إدراكنا للظواهر
وشاعرنا هنا يكتب بعين مخرج يوجه الكاميرا لمشهد كلي يلتقطه من سياقه كما يراه في نفسه ويرسله في فضاء القصائد لينقل رؤيته الجمالية لمتذوقي الكلمات
يحتفي برؤية تصل الخيال بالواقع
في خيط الوعي
ورنين الأصوات المتدفقة بالحركة
مع خلفية تحتضن العقل الأوروبي
وتعيد برمجته في حوار جدلي
تنطلق فيه دراما الفعل
ويتواري تنظير المغرقين في التجريد
زهو القوة والمغامرة والانفتاح الكوني بعد صراع داخلي وخارجي طويل انتهى بصيغة الديمقراطية الليبرالية وغرف رجال الأعمال
وإيتمان ناطق بهذه الأجواء
يرى الصورة الكلية التي يسري صوتها بداخله وحوله
لكن
ها قد أتيت للانتقاد يا نصر
هكذا تقول رضا بعدما أقول لكن
كلمة لكن أيقونة الاعتراض
هكذا تسميها رضا
لكن الصورة الكلية التي يديرها مخرج لم تظهر السينما عنده في القرن التاسع عشر
تختفي منها التفاصيل العميقة
لا توجد متناقضات النفس وتعقيداتها
لا توجد مساحات الصراع الحواري المتعدد الذي يتجاوز الأحادية
ضفيرة النسيج النصي تكاد تخلو من الآخر
ديمقراطية الصورة لا تتوغل في خفايا الاختلاف
تمر سريعا على العمق النفسي والتركيب المعقد لمكونات الشعور والأفكار
الكامير الشعرية لهذا الصوت الشعري الناطق باسم العالم الجديد
تكتفي بعرض الظواهر كما تراها على السطح
أو كما تريد أن تراها
اوراق العشب عنوان عبقري بالفعل، صاغه والت وإيتمان بخبرة إدراكية وحس جمالي، ليمنح الشعر، والفنون بالطبع وظيفة حيوية، الفنون تكتشف مكنوناتنا الفطرية، تطلق طاقتنا الكونية، تستخلص أحلامنا الكامن
الفن شجرة ننتمي إليها لأنها نابعة من إنسانيتنا العابرة للعصور
شجرة نامية من ينابيع رغباتنا وإراداتنا واشواقنا
شجرة ضاربة في أرض خصبة بالتطلعات والرؤي والآمال والخوف والشفقة والفضول
شجرة تتساقط المعاني من ندى اوراقها لتنشر العشب في مساحات الجفاف وصحارى الفراغ
عشب وإيتمان هو البساط الإنساني المشترك
وهو الغذاء الشعوري الذي نستلهمه في إذكاء عواطفنا تجاه عشق العالم
March 15, 2017
In Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman sings nature and his symbiosis with America, he sings the universe and his awareness of it all, but above all he sings the people and their quest for individuality and immortality. ‘The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.’ And here he includes himself with all his mysticism and spiritual illuminations. In that, it is a celebration of humanity, his country and everything in it. Some parts of his poems were so beautiful it spoke to me, however not all touched me. For one I am not American, and for other, he wrote it in another time that is long gone. But there are times when he comes through more our contemporary than many other writers I read.
I loved him for his love of the common people, for his praise of the most unlucky human beings – like slaves and prostitutes – as for his sense of justice. ‘The attitude of the great poets is to cheer up slaves and horrify despots.’ It’s an ode to equality, and for that, we cannot praise him enough. His words sometimes sounded like music in my ears. It really sang to me. ‘You shall stand by my side and look in the mirror with me.’ Sometimes playful, often insightful and timeless, Leaves of Grass is not to be missed. ‘It is the medium that shall well express the inexpressible.’
Let’s let Whitman speak for himself:
Song of Myself
I CELEBRATE myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease . . . . observing a spear of summer grass.
<<>>
Clear and sweet is my soul . . . . and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
<<>>
I resist anything better than my own diversity,
And breathe the air and leave plenty after me,
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.
<<>>
I am the poet of the body,
And I am the poet of the soul.
The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself . . . . the latter I translate into a new tongue.
I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.
<<>>
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'ouvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is a miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels,
And I could come every afternoon of my life to look at the farmer’s girls boiling her iron tea-kettle and baking short-cake.
<<>>
The disdain and calmness of martyrs,
The mother condemned for a witch and burnt with dry wood, and her children gazing on;
The hounded slave that flags in the race and leans by the fence, blowing and covered with sweat,
The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck,
The murderous buckshot and the bullets,
All these I feel or am.
Finally, the three last superb stanzas:
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love.
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
A Song for Occupations
Come closer to me,
Push close my lovers and take the best I possess,
Yield closer and closer and give me the best you possess.
<<>>
The wife – and she is not one jot less than the husband,
The daughter – and she is just good as the son,
The mother – and she is every bit as much as the father.
<<>>
We thought our Union grand and our Constitution grand;
I do not say they are not grand and good – for they are,
I am this day just as much in love with them as you,
But I am eternally in love with you and with all my fellows upon the earth.
<<>>
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop some where waiting for you.
The Sleepers
Be careful, darkness . . . . already, what was it touched me?
I thought my lover was gone . . . . else darkness and he are one,
I hear the heart-beat . . . . I follow . . I fade away.
___
I loved him for his love of the common people, for his praise of the most unlucky human beings – like slaves and prostitutes – as for his sense of justice. ‘The attitude of the great poets is to cheer up slaves and horrify despots.’ It’s an ode to equality, and for that, we cannot praise him enough. His words sometimes sounded like music in my ears. It really sang to me. ‘You shall stand by my side and look in the mirror with me.’ Sometimes playful, often insightful and timeless, Leaves of Grass is not to be missed. ‘It is the medium that shall well express the inexpressible.’
Let’s let Whitman speak for himself:
Song of Myself
I CELEBRATE myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease . . . . observing a spear of summer grass.
<<>>
Clear and sweet is my soul . . . . and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.
<<>>
I resist anything better than my own diversity,
And breathe the air and leave plenty after me,
And am not stuck up, and am in my place.
<<>>
I am the poet of the body,
And I am the poet of the soul.
The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself . . . . the latter I translate into a new tongue.
I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.
<<>>
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'ouvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is a miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels,
And I could come every afternoon of my life to look at the farmer’s girls boiling her iron tea-kettle and baking short-cake.
<<>>
The disdain and calmness of martyrs,
The mother condemned for a witch and burnt with dry wood, and her children gazing on;
The hounded slave that flags in the race and leans by the fence, blowing and covered with sweat,
The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck,
The murderous buckshot and the bullets,
All these I feel or am.
Finally, the three last superb stanzas:
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love.
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
A Song for Occupations
Come closer to me,
Push close my lovers and take the best I possess,
Yield closer and closer and give me the best you possess.
<<>>
The wife – and she is not one jot less than the husband,
The daughter – and she is just good as the son,
The mother – and she is every bit as much as the father.
<<>>
We thought our Union grand and our Constitution grand;
I do not say they are not grand and good – for they are,
I am this day just as much in love with them as you,
But I am eternally in love with you and with all my fellows upon the earth.
<<>>
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop some where waiting for you.
The Sleepers
Be careful, darkness . . . . already, what was it touched me?
I thought my lover was gone . . . . else darkness and he are one,
I hear the heart-beat . . . . I follow . . I fade away.
___
October 8, 2013
When Leaves of Grass was first published, critics applauded Whitman "only that he did not burn" the "mass of stupid filth" immediately upon completion. They primarily objected to its sensual and occasionally (rather overtly) homoerotic content. Nowadays, of course, it seems entirely too mild to raise an objection on those grounds, but man, oh man, I understand the impulse to want to turn this book into kindling.
It's less like THIS...
...and more like THIS.
This weighty poetic tome has all the weaknesses inherent to self-publication: unjustified overlong length, tedious repetition of images and ideas, wildly uneven quality from one poem to the next, irritating authorial tics, and a pervasive self-important focus.
It's really impossible to document the amazing repetitions in Leaves of Grass short of simply handing you the book itself. It is repetitive in syntax, in word choice, in tone, in content, in message, in perspective. And the collection is inexcusably padded past any hope of delivering the forceful emotional impact that poems are so uniquely capable of.
And man, what gives with the crappy words!? English's strongest selling point as a language is its vast, incredibly nuanced vocabulary. It's not a particularly beautiful or intuitive dictionary, but the thesaurus is stellar--we have an endless supply of synonyms at our disposal. There's really no excuse for a native English-speaking poet to resort to such dull, texture-less language. Take this brief ditty, After the Sea-Ship:
Guys, did you know that winds whistle? Or that ship sails are white-gray? Or that the ocean has both "larger and smaller waves?" Are you kidding me? (And yes, that's the whole poem, by the way, I didn't pull him off the stage with a cane right before he got to the good part.)
Am I being too unfair? Let's compare with another short, nautically-themed poem from a contemporary from the same transcendental school. Here is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's sonnet The Sound of the Sea.
Even given the additional constraints of rhyming meter, Wadsworth (whom I'm honestly not that excited about in general) manages to deliver a concise, impactful message with an interesting scope and vocabulary. Also, The Sound of the Sea was not padded with flabby rephrasings of the same idea in an overlong collection. The point is, Whitman was mediocre, at best, even in his own time.
Less THIS...
...more THIS.
I know I'm being a bit vicious, but from six hundred pages of poetry, I gathered fewer insights than from a collection of half-a-dozen from a better poet. I have already started reading a new poetry collection, and I'm compelled to read and reread, discovering new depths, awestruck at the emotional viscera. Reading Leaves of Grass was, in comparison, watching a slightly interesting shade of paint dry.
The wide-eyed transcendental awe that Whitman is famous for grates under the relentless single-minded repetition. Whitman's spirit may have been remarkable, but his language is uninspired, hobbled by a limited vocabulary and overburdened by his didactic approach to inspiration. He tries too hard to educate and persuade, and sounds like a salesmen hustling flora and fauna door-to-door. The man's never met a thing he wasn't ready to romanticize: toiling farmers, shackled slaves, dying soldiers--they are noble savages, one and all.
Less THIS...
...more THIS.
His relentless optimism at the splendor of America (politically, geographically, socially--every part of it is super-duper splendid, according to Walt) displays a total unwillingness to look critically at the world he lives in, which is a tremendous failure for a poet. Page after page documents the unending beauty of the territories he'd never visited, but there are only a handful of passing acknowledgements that Americans were actively slaughtering one another over the right to own other living humans. Whitman is not being naive here, but rather deliberately myopic.
An extremely tedious "classic" that is really nothing more than rambling sermons from an inept poet. I can see someone being charmed by his incessant enthusiasm for life, but for a pragmatist like myself, I can't stomach the lack of emotional maturity. The world has all kinds of grace and majesty and stars and perfection, but it also has human beings killing other human beings for no clear reason. A robust poet can make sense of this dilemma--Whitman is no robust poet, so he merely turns away from it.
It's less like THIS...
...and more like THIS.
This weighty poetic tome has all the weaknesses inherent to self-publication: unjustified overlong length, tedious repetition of images and ideas, wildly uneven quality from one poem to the next, irritating authorial tics, and a pervasive self-important focus.
"As I look at stuff,
I think about stuff.
O stuff! O synonym for stuff!
O six-page list of things that are
similar yet different!"
It's really impossible to document the amazing repetitions in Leaves of Grass short of simply handing you the book itself. It is repetitive in syntax, in word choice, in tone, in content, in message, in perspective. And the collection is inexcusably padded past any hope of delivering the forceful emotional impact that poems are so uniquely capable of.
And man, what gives with the crappy words!? English's strongest selling point as a language is its vast, incredibly nuanced vocabulary. It's not a particularly beautiful or intuitive dictionary, but the thesaurus is stellar--we have an endless supply of synonyms at our disposal. There's really no excuse for a native English-speaking poet to resort to such dull, texture-less language. Take this brief ditty, After the Sea-Ship:
After the sea-ship, after the whistling winds,
After the white-gray sails taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad myriad waves hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship,
Waves of the ocean bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves, liquid, uneven, emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
Where the great vessel sailing and tacking displaced the surface,
Larger and smaller waves in the spread of the ocean yearnfully flowing,
The wake of the sea-ship after she passes, flashing and frolicsome under the sun,
A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many fragments,
Following the stately and rapid ship, in the wake following.
Guys, did you know that winds whistle? Or that ship sails are white-gray? Or that the ocean has both "larger and smaller waves?" Are you kidding me? (And yes, that's the whole poem, by the way, I didn't pull him off the stage with a cane right before he got to the good part.)
Am I being too unfair? Let's compare with another short, nautically-themed poem from a contemporary from the same transcendental school. Here is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's sonnet The Sound of the Sea.
The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,
And round the pebbly beaches far and wide
I heard the first wave of the rising tide
Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;
A voice out of the silence of the deep,
A sound mysteriously multiplied
As of a cataract from the mountain's side,
Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.
So comes to us at times, from the unknown
And inaccessible solitudes of being,
The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;
And inspirations, that we deem our own,
Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing
Of things beyond our reason or control.
Even given the additional constraints of rhyming meter, Wadsworth (whom I'm honestly not that excited about in general) manages to deliver a concise, impactful message with an interesting scope and vocabulary. Also, The Sound of the Sea was not padded with flabby rephrasings of the same idea in an overlong collection. The point is, Whitman was mediocre, at best, even in his own time.
Less THIS...
...more THIS.
I know I'm being a bit vicious, but from six hundred pages of poetry, I gathered fewer insights than from a collection of half-a-dozen from a better poet. I have already started reading a new poetry collection, and I'm compelled to read and reread, discovering new depths, awestruck at the emotional viscera. Reading Leaves of Grass was, in comparison, watching a slightly interesting shade of paint dry.
The wide-eyed transcendental awe that Whitman is famous for grates under the relentless single-minded repetition. Whitman's spirit may have been remarkable, but his language is uninspired, hobbled by a limited vocabulary and overburdened by his didactic approach to inspiration. He tries too hard to educate and persuade, and sounds like a salesmen hustling flora and fauna door-to-door. The man's never met a thing he wasn't ready to romanticize: toiling farmers, shackled slaves, dying soldiers--they are noble savages, one and all.
Less THIS...
...more THIS.
His relentless optimism at the splendor of America (politically, geographically, socially--every part of it is super-duper splendid, according to Walt) displays a total unwillingness to look critically at the world he lives in, which is a tremendous failure for a poet. Page after page documents the unending beauty of the territories he'd never visited, but there are only a handful of passing acknowledgements that Americans were actively slaughtering one another over the right to own other living humans. Whitman is not being naive here, but rather deliberately myopic.
An extremely tedious "classic" that is really nothing more than rambling sermons from an inept poet. I can see someone being charmed by his incessant enthusiasm for life, but for a pragmatist like myself, I can't stomach the lack of emotional maturity. The world has all kinds of grace and majesty and stars and perfection, but it also has human beings killing other human beings for no clear reason. A robust poet can make sense of this dilemma--Whitman is no robust poet, so he merely turns away from it.
June 9, 2011
Alright, my rating here is very misleading. I haven't read Leaves Of Grass. I don't even intend to read Leaves Of Grass. Not all the way through any way. It seems sort of weird to just read a big fat collection of poetry all the way through. The five star rating is for one poem, "Song of the Open Road".
I've never really appreciated poetry. I've liked song lyrics and that's poetry, but it seemed like I needed a tune to go with it. I've liked scripture which can be pretty poetic, but it seemed I needed religious sentiment to go with it. Over the last few years , I've been trying to correct this character flaw, and I've felt like I was improving, but I didn't feel like I was there yet.
So, I finished Atlas Shrugged recently and it left me feeling afraid of commitment, so I took Leaves Of Grass to work with me, so I'd have something to read on my lunch hour without feeling obligated to finish and that might help me grow in my appreciation of poetry. I looked in the table of contents and saw "Song of the Open Road" and thought that it might appeal to me as a runner/hiker guy and read it. Appeal to me, it did. I found myself reading it over and over again and having a very positive emotional reaction. It was visceral and inexplicable, so I won't try to detail it for you, but I thought as I was reading it, "This must be what appreciating poetry feels like."
I wanted to memorize it and quote applicable sections at apropos moments to friends and family and all that other lame stuff that people who appreciate poetry do.
So it gets five stars for providing me with something of a break through. I think I'll go read it again.
I've never really appreciated poetry. I've liked song lyrics and that's poetry, but it seemed like I needed a tune to go with it. I've liked scripture which can be pretty poetic, but it seemed I needed religious sentiment to go with it. Over the last few years , I've been trying to correct this character flaw, and I've felt like I was improving, but I didn't feel like I was there yet.
So, I finished Atlas Shrugged recently and it left me feeling afraid of commitment, so I took Leaves Of Grass to work with me, so I'd have something to read on my lunch hour without feeling obligated to finish and that might help me grow in my appreciation of poetry. I looked in the table of contents and saw "Song of the Open Road" and thought that it might appeal to me as a runner/hiker guy and read it. Appeal to me, it did. I found myself reading it over and over again and having a very positive emotional reaction. It was visceral and inexplicable, so I won't try to detail it for you, but I thought as I was reading it, "This must be what appreciating poetry feels like."
I wanted to memorize it and quote applicable sections at apropos moments to friends and family and all that other lame stuff that people who appreciate poetry do.
So it gets five stars for providing me with something of a break through. I think I'll go read it again.
July 11, 2017
Whitman sings the song of America like no other poet I know--the outsized joy and pain, the affinity for common folk and the love of nature and the sheer overwhelming feeling of every sight and sound and industrious noise around him. "I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear," he wrote. Because of this some are tempted to see Whitman as a poet of pure exuberance--like a proto-hippie or, worse, like a garrulous Hallmark card. But Whitman doesn't shy away from pain at all--he embraces it like he embraces everything else--not in a way that cheapens or ignores it but in a way that feels it deeply too. He did, after all, endure the civil war (he served as a nurse in army hospitals--we might shudder to think what those were like) and wrote about the experience in his typically direct, personal way.
Speaking of the personal, for many years I always brought an old tattered copy of Whitman with me backpacking, and whenever I had to endure a particularly awful commute, I'd listen to Whitman to calm down, to step outside myself and encounter something beautiful amid the soul-crushing traffic. Whitman has become like an old friend to me now, one I'll no doubt keep coming back to, no matter my station in life or what I'm going through.
Speaking of the personal, for many years I always brought an old tattered copy of Whitman with me backpacking, and whenever I had to endure a particularly awful commute, I'd listen to Whitman to calm down, to step outside myself and encounter something beautiful amid the soul-crushing traffic. Whitman has become like an old friend to me now, one I'll no doubt keep coming back to, no matter my station in life or what I'm going through.
Want to read
January 17, 2020
We can look at this one of two ways, either I'm a bit late to do a Christmas Book Haul video or I'm hella early for next year.
(Click the link to see what other books arrived via the polar express).
July 30, 2019
Primer acercamiento a este poeta! O por lo menos, el primer roce de mi mano sobre sus palabras. Una gozada :)
March 25, 2008
Leaves of Grass is like reading every single instant message that I and a friend of mine ever wrote to one another over the course of the last ten years. Likely way too long, too self-serving and would have shocked the general public if they cared to read it when it was written. But nestled in there are some real, true brilliant moments.
This is after all Whitman's life work, laid bare and un-edited for the most part. What else are we to expect? He is literally singing a song of himself, which he believes to be American - and is American by all accounts. He shouts it loud and strong and keeps repeating it until the reader gets it. But in there in that persistance is a thing of real, American beauty - a self-made man in love with his country and the people in it. Real unhumble patriotism. To understand this in all it's ragged glory is to understand Whitman and his America.
This is after all Whitman's life work, laid bare and un-edited for the most part. What else are we to expect? He is literally singing a song of himself, which he believes to be American - and is American by all accounts. He shouts it loud and strong and keeps repeating it until the reader gets it. But in there in that persistance is a thing of real, American beauty - a self-made man in love with his country and the people in it. Real unhumble patriotism. To understand this in all it's ragged glory is to understand Whitman and his America.
November 18, 2010
Did you know that the letters in "Leaves of Grass" can be rearranged to spell "Asses of Gravel"?
If you find yourself anagramming the letters in the title rather than reading the poetry, it's a good sign you're not into the book. But I really wanted some of whatever Whitman was smoking that made him so ecstatically, ebulliently enthusiastic about every molecule on the planet. Including his own b.o.
"The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer."
Huh??? Was this guy sniffing glue along with those arm-pits?
I made it through about 85 pages, then let it go. Maybe I'll come back to it in the future. There ARE some beautiful passages hiding in among all those exclamation marks.
If you find yourself anagramming the letters in the title rather than reading the poetry, it's a good sign you're not into the book. But I really wanted some of whatever Whitman was smoking that made him so ecstatically, ebulliently enthusiastic about every molecule on the planet. Including his own b.o.
"The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer."
Huh??? Was this guy sniffing glue along with those arm-pits?
I made it through about 85 pages, then let it go. Maybe I'll come back to it in the future. There ARE some beautiful passages hiding in among all those exclamation marks.
September 4, 2008
Holy shit this is self-important and tedious.
--update: This has sat untouched on my desk all year. I can think of a hundred books I'd rather start than finish this, so I doubt I'll pick it back up unless I run out of books to read, I'm too poor to buy any more books, all my friends turn on me and refuse to loan me anything else, and all the nearby libraries are set on fire simultaneously.
--update: This has sat untouched on my desk all year. I can think of a hundred books I'd rather start than finish this, so I doubt I'll pick it back up unless I run out of books to read, I'm too poor to buy any more books, all my friends turn on me and refuse to loan me anything else, and all the nearby libraries are set on fire simultaneously.
March 19, 2021
The most impressive, of course, is "Song of Myself", after, the style of the poems becomes rather repetitive. And though it is said that "he uses repetition, which helps to develop a certain type of magical rhythm to accentuate the ideas stated in the poem", it becomes too much when it reoccurs in every single poem.
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color’dsea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed andmeeting the sun.
*
Night of south winds—night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night—mad naked summer night.
Smile O voluptuous cool-breath’d earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of departed sunset—earth of the mountains misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow’d earth—rich apple-blossom’d earth!
Smile, for your lover comes.
*
Sea of stretch’d ground-swells,
Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths,
Sea of the brine of life and of unshovell’d yet always-ready graves,
Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea,
I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases.
*
And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other withoutever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit aswonderful.
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and dark-color’dsea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belch’d words of my voice loos’d to the eddies of the wind,
A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides,
The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from bed andmeeting the sun.
*
Night of south winds—night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night—mad naked summer night.
Smile O voluptuous cool-breath’d earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of departed sunset—earth of the mountains misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow’d earth—rich apple-blossom’d earth!
Smile, for your lover comes.
*
Sea of stretch’d ground-swells,
Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths,
Sea of the brine of life and of unshovell’d yet always-ready graves,
Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea,
I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases.
*
And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other withoutever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit aswonderful.
Want to read
September 30, 2015There's only so much rhetoric on American imperialism I can ingest and assimilate at a stretch. Later, Mr Whitman.
(paused at 47%)
(paused at 47%)
July 5, 2023
I do like Walt and I enjoy most of his poetry in Leaves of Grass. It’s a classic that deserves reading 📖 you’ll need to decide if it fits your heart. Like Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet, Walt never could get along with the churches, which is not a criticism, for he could not abide any that were halls of judgment and legalism. Like Thomas, he was bursting with love, grace, creativity and spirituality, and refused to be restricted or confined by how various clergy and religious denominations defined and delineated God and faith.
May 21, 2021
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself"
I read a translation in Dutch of the original edition of 1855, with only 12 poems, and the first one occupies half of the book. This minimal approach (later versions were much, much more elaborate) has the effect of a trumpet call, it's pure vitalism, colored by a strong physical sensuality. It expresses deep faith in life and death, and a sense of belonging to all (a kind of transcendentalism), the organic and the anorganic, the whole universe. At the same time it testifies to a fundamental feeling of unfettered freedom, indissolubly linked with the 'I', the ego.
Style and language of these poems together form a real verbal orgy. Whitman presents grass as a symbol of life: it's persistent, wild, bending with the wind, present all around. The secret of life?: that's life itself, but with the 'ego' at its center, a complete universe orbiting around itself. “I am large, I contain multitudes".
While reading, the rational and moral voice inside myself whispered that it's not that simple, and that all this egocentrism comes with a price. I know a lot of people can't stand the exuberance of the Whitman-show (especially in his later, more elaborate versions). But what the heck: it's a dazzling experience to read this, a breath of fresh air in times of darkness. I can take on the world now.
I read a translation in Dutch of the original edition of 1855, with only 12 poems, and the first one occupies half of the book. This minimal approach (later versions were much, much more elaborate) has the effect of a trumpet call, it's pure vitalism, colored by a strong physical sensuality. It expresses deep faith in life and death, and a sense of belonging to all (a kind of transcendentalism), the organic and the anorganic, the whole universe. At the same time it testifies to a fundamental feeling of unfettered freedom, indissolubly linked with the 'I', the ego.
Style and language of these poems together form a real verbal orgy. Whitman presents grass as a symbol of life: it's persistent, wild, bending with the wind, present all around. The secret of life?: that's life itself, but with the 'ego' at its center, a complete universe orbiting around itself. “I am large, I contain multitudes".
While reading, the rational and moral voice inside myself whispered that it's not that simple, and that all this egocentrism comes with a price. I know a lot of people can't stand the exuberance of the Whitman-show (especially in his later, more elaborate versions). But what the heck: it's a dazzling experience to read this, a breath of fresh air in times of darkness. I can take on the world now.
May 13, 2022
I am the man, I suffer’d, I was there.
Walt Whitman first wrote and published this collection in his tender age of 37 and it was just 150 pages long. For whatever reason, instead of writing another collection, he kept tinkering with it his whole life, adding and adding to it and that's how we got a deathbed version. I don't know which one was this, but since it had 680 pages, I would guess a later one.
It started out being very quiet, melancholy, tender and private and, as Walt was getting older, started to remind sermons and preachings, including patriotic ones. And I must admit, that's were I lost interest, I'm much more about his shy quiet personal poetry myself.
I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,
And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my feet.
What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me,
Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,
Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me,
Not asking the sky to come down to my good will,
Scattering it freely forever.
The young man that wakes deep at night, the hot hand seeking to repress what would master him,
The mystic amorous night, the strange half-welcome pangs, visions, sweats,
The pulse pounding through palms and trembling encircling fingers, the young man all color’d, red, ashamed, angry;
The greed that eats me day and night with hungry gnaw, till I saturate what shall produce boys to fill my place when I am through,
The wholesome relief, repose, content,
And this bunch pluck’d at random from myself,
It has done its work—I toss it carelessly to fall where it may.
But this was the first collection of poetry I've read for fun, not counting epic poetry, and I enjoyed it a lot. It's very sexual, especially in the beginning, Walt is obsessed and worships human body, mostly male (he does remember woman's body, but it was obvious to me, his heart wasn't that into it). But isn't it crazy to think this collection was a contemporary of Jane Eyre and David Copperfield.
Good-bye my Fancy!
Farewell dear mate, dear love!
I’m going away, I know not where,
Or to what fortune, or whether I may ever see you again,
So Good-bye my Fancy.
Now for my last—let me look back a moment;
The slower fainter ticking of the clock is in me,
Exit, nightfall, and soon the heart-thud stopping.
Long have we lived, joy’d, caress’d together;
Delightful!—now separation—Good-bye my Fancy.
Yet let me not be too hasty,
Long indeed have we lived, slept, filter’d, become really blended into one;
Then if we die we die together, (yes, we’ll remain one,)
If we go anywhere we’ll go together to meet what happens,
May-be we’ll be better off and blither, and learn something,
May-be it is yourself now really ushering me to the true songs, (who knows?)
May-be it is you the mortal knob really undoing, turning—so now finally,
Good-bye—and hail! my Fancy.
August 26, 2023
I loved reading this amazing book. Whitman has the ability to blur the lines between the self and the nature. For example, through the poem "Song of the Open Road" uses the metaphor of the road to symbolize life's limitless possibilities and encourages readers to connect with the beauty of the Earth.
Another central theme throught the book is about Unity, his verses envisions a harmonious society where differences of race, class, and nationality are transcended.
The collection concludes with "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," an elegy for Abraham Lincoln that expresses grief on a national scale.
Whitman's poetic style is characterized by free verse, vivid imagery, and a fluid, cascading rhythm that mirrors life's cadence. It's a book that's gonna have a lasting impact on me, igniting contemplation about the intricacies of life and the interconnectedness of all living beings.
Another central theme throught the book is about Unity, his verses envisions a harmonious society where differences of race, class, and nationality are transcended.
The collection concludes with "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," an elegy for Abraham Lincoln that expresses grief on a national scale.
Whitman's poetic style is characterized by free verse, vivid imagery, and a fluid, cascading rhythm that mirrors life's cadence. It's a book that's gonna have a lasting impact on me, igniting contemplation about the intricacies of life and the interconnectedness of all living beings.
June 5, 2007
"Song of Myself" is a work of pure genius comparable to Shakespeare's greatest. I love these last three stanzas especially. When my wife and I were dating long distance and when I was deployed, I would end alot of my letters with "I stop somewhere waiting for you."
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love.
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love.
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.
July 6, 2019
Confesso que parti para esta leitura com uma expectativa que se revelou completamente errada, e acredito que em parte por isso tenha a minha experiencia deste livro se tornado tão pouco interessante. A expectativa foi criada por todo o respeito que a obra de Whitman carrega, mas especialmente pela comparação constante que é feita com Pessoa, surgindo este rotulado por Harold Bloom como “Whitman português”, enquanto Lobo Antunes, numa entrevista de 2015 ao El País, dizia: “O livro do não sei o quê me aborrece até a morte. A poesia do heterónimo Álvaro de Campos é uma cópia de Walt Whitman”.
Deixando de lado o ridículo das afirmações de ALA, Whitman não é Pessoa, e “As Folhas da Erva” é uma obra completamente diferente do “Livro do Desassossego”. Pode-se analisar a poesia na sua forma, estrutura, ritmo, nas abordagens literárias que se quiser e dizer que os autores se aproximam, não vou dizer que não possa existir proximidade, mas quando falamos de sentimento, de perfuração do Eu, a escrita de Pessoa tem um registo completamente distinto. Enquanto Whitman fala liberalmente para os demais, fá-lo de forma bela, mas não sem pela repetição deixar de se tornar também petulante.
Li a tradução de Maria de Lourdes Guimarães, recipiente do Prémio Tradução do Pen Club em 2002, e comparada com a de José Agostinho Baptista, por quem li o excerto “Canto de Mim Mesmo”, pode até ser mais correta, formalmente mais próxima, contudo perde em intimidade e profundidade. O texto parece escrito de forma mais solta, desprendida, o que me faz afastar ainda mais do autor, e do livro. Pode até ser que assim seja no original, do que li em inglês não consigo chegar suficientemente dentro da língua para o aferir, mas de algum modo não cola com a imagem que tinha criado do autor, muito provavelmente pela culpa de ter povoado o meu imaginário com sentires de Pessoa. Ou então, é apenas a demonstração final de que não sou um verdadeiro amante de poesia, que nunca o fui, e dificilmente algum dia virei a ser.
Diz Whitman, "Propus-me representar, sem qualquer desânimo, a humanidade tal como ela é.”, e é isso que podemos dizer ter em “As Folhas da Erva”, com Whitman a dissertar sobre tudo e mais alguma coisa, levando-nos pela mão através da cultura americana do século XIX adentro. Planamos pelo meio da cultura feita de lugares e pessoas, passeamos, viajamos com o autor, mas para mim fica-se por isso mesmo. Com imensa pena minha, porque contava ter algo de muito diferente para dizer ao chegar a este momento.
Deixando de lado o ridículo das afirmações de ALA, Whitman não é Pessoa, e “As Folhas da Erva” é uma obra completamente diferente do “Livro do Desassossego”. Pode-se analisar a poesia na sua forma, estrutura, ritmo, nas abordagens literárias que se quiser e dizer que os autores se aproximam, não vou dizer que não possa existir proximidade, mas quando falamos de sentimento, de perfuração do Eu, a escrita de Pessoa tem um registo completamente distinto. Enquanto Whitman fala liberalmente para os demais, fá-lo de forma bela, mas não sem pela repetição deixar de se tornar também petulante.
Li a tradução de Maria de Lourdes Guimarães, recipiente do Prémio Tradução do Pen Club em 2002, e comparada com a de José Agostinho Baptista, por quem li o excerto “Canto de Mim Mesmo”, pode até ser mais correta, formalmente mais próxima, contudo perde em intimidade e profundidade. O texto parece escrito de forma mais solta, desprendida, o que me faz afastar ainda mais do autor, e do livro. Pode até ser que assim seja no original, do que li em inglês não consigo chegar suficientemente dentro da língua para o aferir, mas de algum modo não cola com a imagem que tinha criado do autor, muito provavelmente pela culpa de ter povoado o meu imaginário com sentires de Pessoa. Ou então, é apenas a demonstração final de que não sou um verdadeiro amante de poesia, que nunca o fui, e dificilmente algum dia virei a ser.
Diz Whitman, "Propus-me representar, sem qualquer desânimo, a humanidade tal como ela é.”, e é isso que podemos dizer ter em “As Folhas da Erva”, com Whitman a dissertar sobre tudo e mais alguma coisa, levando-nos pela mão através da cultura americana do século XIX adentro. Planamos pelo meio da cultura feita de lugares e pessoas, passeamos, viajamos com o autor, mas para mim fica-se por isso mesmo. Com imensa pena minha, porque contava ter algo de muito diferente para dizer ao chegar a este momento.
October 19, 2015
شريد الطرقات وغريب الأطوار ،ملحن الكلمات ،الماشي بين السفوح والوديان ، المقاتل ، المتطرف الغائب ،الحاضر ، قديس الروح وعربيد الجسد، المتفائل، الرفيق والسائح، الفلاح، المغامر، المنطلق نحو حياة لا حدود لها وأفق فسيح يتمدد أمامه كرحلة أبدية تنتهي من حيث تبدأ وتبدأ من حيث ينتهي، في أعماق الطبيعة وجنون الحياة وبين أجساد الفقراء والبائسين والقتال والمقاتلين ،البحر والصيادين ..
هناك حيث يسكن والت ويتمان...
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
أنا شاعر الجسد، وأنا شاعر الروح
هناءات الجنة معي، وعذابات الجحيم معي
أغدق الأولى على نفسي
وأترجم الثانية لغة جديدة
أنا شاعر المرأة، كما أنا شاعر الرجل...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
أيها الغريب
حين تمر بي وتريد أن تحدثي
لم لا تحدثني؟
ولم لا احدثك؟
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
أرى ما فعلته المعارك والأوبئة والطغيان..
أرى السجناء والشهداء
أرى المجاعة في البحر
وأرى البحارة يقترعون على من سيقتلون
حتى يظل أحياءً ، الباقون
أرى الإهانات والشتائم التي يكيلها المتغطرسون
للعمال
والفقراء
والزنوج
وأمثالهم...
كل هذا...
كل هذا اللؤم والعذاب الذين لا ينتهيان
أجلس وأحدق فيهما
أرى
وأسمع
صامتاً !!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
هل ظن إمرؤ
أنه سعيد الحظ بإن ولد؟
أسارع فأقول له أو لها
أنه سعيد الحظ كذلك بأن يموت
وأنا العارف السبب
إنني أدع الموت للموتى
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
في الليل أفتح كوّتي
وأنظر إلى المنظومات الكونية المنتشرة بعيداً
فإذا كل ما أراه -ولو ضاعفته قدر ما أستطيع- لن يبلغ
إلا حافة المنظومات الأبعد
إنها تتسع وتزيد إتساعاً.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
النصر ، الأتحاد، الأيمان ، الذات ، الزمن
العقد المستعصية، الثروات، الأسرار
التقدم الأبدي الأكوان، أبناء الحاضر
ها هي ذي الحياة إذاً
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
إني أرى شيئاً من الله، كل ساعة من الساعات الأربع والعشرون
وكل لحضة في وجوه الرجال والنساء، أرى الله
وفي وجهي أمام المرأة
فإنني أرى رسائل من الله ملقاة في الشوارع
وكل رسالة موقع من الله
وأنا أترك الرسائل مكانها
فأنا أعلم أنني حيثما حللت
فإن رسائل أخرى ستظل تجيء، إلى الأبد.....
Read
April 11, 2018I read it in my living room. Read it by the sea. Read it in the afternoon, at sunset and at night. I read it from mid-winter through mid-spring. Read it while sad, read it while content, read it while not giving a fuck. I read it and understood it, read it and misinterpreted it.
I read it.
Do I seem weird?
Do I care?
I read it.
Do I seem weird?
Do I care?
October 9, 2015
ويتمان شاعر داعر، عبقري، لطيف، حييّ، محب للكون والطبيعة والوجود
عاشق للمتع والحياة واللذائد
شعره داعر، ومفضوح. وإباحي أحيانا
كلماته صريحة جريئة، ونداءاته تنبض بالحياة
ديوان جميل وعبقري، وترجمة سعدي يوسف أحيته
عاشق للمتع والحياة واللذائد
شعره داعر، ومفضوح. وإباحي أحيانا
كلماته صريحة جريئة، ونداءاته تنبض بالحياة
ديوان جميل وعبقري، وترجمة سعدي يوسف أحيته
Read
January 18, 2021Maybe one day I will get into poetry but today isn't that day.
October 14, 2015
القراءة الأولي لـ والت وايتمان
الشاعر الأمريكي الشهير
الهادئ .. الراقي .. البسيط إلي حد التعقيد !!
هل تعرف ذلك الإحساس حين تصبح سعادتك الكبري في الاستلقاء علي ا��عشب الأخضر والعالم ��مر من فوقك لا تعبأ به ولا يعبأ بك ؟
هل تعرف ذلك الإحساس حين تكون سعادتك في أن تتحدث مع ذاتك عن ذاتك .. وعن الآخرين بمنتهي الصدق .. فلا تعبأ بصورتك في المرآة كيف كانت ؟ ولا كيف نظروا إليك ؟ ولا كيف سيحكمون عليك في يوم ما ؟
هل تعرف ذلك الإحساس حين تتحدث إليهم بكل صدق
وتقول : هذا أنا ! فلا تتعبوا أنفسكم في تغييري .. أنا أحب نفسي وأحبكم ..
ولن أقلل من شأني .. ولن أقلل من شأنكم .. !
هل تعرف ذلك الإحساس حين تخرج من بيتك صباحاً وتنظر إلي السماء وتبتسم لـ لله عز وجل وتتوقع مع كل خطوة مفاجأة قدرية أو هدية إلهية ستحبها مهما كانت ؟؟
هذا هو وايتمان في أغلب قصائد هذا الكتاب
~~
June 21, 2017
"Adeus, minha Fantasia!
Adeus, querida companheira, minha amada!
Vou, mas não sei para onde vou,
Nem qual será a minha sorte, nem se alguma vez nos voltaremos a ver,
Por isso, adeus, minha Fantasia!
Agora, a minha última vontade — deixa-me olhar para trás por um instante;
Cada vez mais lento e leve o tiquetaque do relógio dentro de mim,
Retirada, anoitecer, e em breve a surda palpitação que pára.
Convivemos, alegrámo-nos e consolámo-nos durante muito tempo;
Foi magnífico! — Agora separamo-nos — Adeus, minha Fantasia!
Mas não me devo apressar,
É verdade que muito convivemos, dormimos, purificámo-nos, fundimo-nos num verdadeiramente;
Então, se temos de morrer, morramos juntos (sim, continuaremos a ser um),
Se a algum lado temos de ir que o façamos juntos para enfrentar o que acontecer,
Talvez sejamos mais afortunados e felizes, e aprendamos alguma coisa,
Talvez sejas tu quem me mostra agora o caminho para os verdadeiros cantos (quem sabe?),
Talvez sejas tu quem me faz girar a maçaneta da porta mortal — por isso, finalmente,
Adeus, e boa viagem, minha Fantasia!"
Adeus, querida companheira, minha amada!
Vou, mas não sei para onde vou,
Nem qual será a minha sorte, nem se alguma vez nos voltaremos a ver,
Por isso, adeus, minha Fantasia!
Agora, a minha última vontade — deixa-me olhar para trás por um instante;
Cada vez mais lento e leve o tiquetaque do relógio dentro de mim,
Retirada, anoitecer, e em breve a surda palpitação que pára.
Convivemos, alegrámo-nos e consolámo-nos durante muito tempo;
Foi magnífico! — Agora separamo-nos — Adeus, minha Fantasia!
Mas não me devo apressar,
É verdade que muito convivemos, dormimos, purificámo-nos, fundimo-nos num verdadeiramente;
Então, se temos de morrer, morramos juntos (sim, continuaremos a ser um),
Se a algum lado temos de ir que o façamos juntos para enfrentar o que acontecer,
Talvez sejamos mais afortunados e felizes, e aprendamos alguma coisa,
Talvez sejas tu quem me mostra agora o caminho para os verdadeiros cantos (quem sabe?),
Talvez sejas tu quem me faz girar a maçaneta da porta mortal — por isso, finalmente,
Adeus, e boa viagem, minha Fantasia!"
September 18, 2023
Let’s just get the obvious questions out of the way first: Yes, I did go to some length to make sure my edition of this book was the exact one Gale Boetticher gave to “my other favourite W.W.” in Breaking Bad. And, yes, I am going to leave it in the loo in the hope that random people will find it, have a quick peruse, and then recognise a pretty awesome bathroom-related pop culture reference before wiping their bum and reemerging with the resolute intention of praising my ingenious antics. I celebrate myself… And wot, mate?
The weather has been gorgeous lately, and so I have mostly been reading Leaves of Grass in the quiet of the back garden, the gentle rustle of the leaves in the breeze and the twittering of birds the natural sonic accompaniment to my Whitman experience. For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll ignore how distracted and irritated I have sometimes become at some of the other more earthly sounds which creep into my idyllic oasis: distant trains shrieking and clattering along the Midland Main Line, boy racers zooming up and down Watling Street, exultant in the nasal hum of their obnoxiously loud exhausts, the occasional rumble of a heavy Atlantic bound Heathrow departure on the ULTIB 1J, or the awful bassy pop music that the twat a few houses away subjects the wider Radlett conurbation to all weekend all summer… — we ignore these things because, despite the twats and the noise pollution, Whitman’s natural outdoorsy naturalism mostly shines through anyway. There’s something untethered and loose about his writing and his graceful optimism makes him just the right tonic on a quiet summer’s day, away from the other cares of the world. Moreover, if he teaches me anything, it is to see the beauty in things that displease me.
When he’s at his best, he feels almost entirely free, and reading him filled me with images of myself swooping phantasmagorically around various scenes of American life, billowing around at random like an uprooted dandelion seed buffeted by a gentle breeze.
His free verse technique is a strange invention. Were it not for the fact that each sentence begins on a new line, I think I’d struggle to properly distinguish between it and straightforward prose writing; but, setting semantics aside, the effect of Whitman’s writing (be it prose or verse or some other thing entirely) is one of soaring rootlessness.
He talks endlessly about himself, but in a non-specific sense, morphing into whatever he needs to be for each scene, as though he literally is the same thing as everything around him. Leaves of Grass might be the work of a fantastically inflated ego, and maybe you could interpret it as a solipsistic appraisal of life (as though Whitman is saying he is the greatest thing in creation), but that’s clearly not the intent (even if it may be that the case that his verses could only have been written by the hand of a man with a fairly puffed up view of himself). And, although Leaves of Grass is decidedly a book that elevates the American ideal — which exalts the sanctity of the individual above all else — I also sensed that it contains shades of Eastern philosophy, mixed in in a way that reveals the apparent polarities of Western individualism and Eastern unity to be, at their cores, not too different after all; for, if every individual is sanctified for being a part of creation, that’s essentially the same thing as saying we’re all part of the unified pattern of Samsara-like waves.
This idea reminded me of one of my favourite passages in War and Peace: Pierre Bezukhov, held captive by the French, looks up at the night sky and, from his confines, recognises his connection to all things:
Pierre is thinking something very similar to that which is expressed in the line of poetry from which Leaves of Grass takes its name, perhaps the most critical line in the whole book (and one which is even more impressive for having been written about 70 years before science had developed any understanding of stellar nuclear fusion):
What I think Tolstoy and Whitman are getting at, is that the sovereignty of the individual comes from the positive and optimistic idea that creation is above criticism — that it is sacred — and that by existing as an atom within creation, the individual must be raised to the status of a revered object which deserves to be set free and celebrated for its majesty.
Whitman sees this idea through an American lens of the kind which paints the ethos of the United States almost like a religion — a religion which (complete with unchangeable sacred text) promises to build paradise on Earth. It’s, therefore, no surprise that he has become the American national poet.
Looking up from my Whitman and watching over my summery garden, I wonder if Whitman’s American paradise ever truly was a vision close to realisation. I suspect not — not quite. The rest of the democratic West (the “Collective West”, as Mr Putin puts it) certainly wouldn’t look the same today had there not been some degree of American influence over the last century. Hell, my country would have probably fallen to Naziism were it not for “the New World, with all its power and might, [stepping] forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old”. Even so, I can’t help but wonder whether Whitman’s vision was always slightly too optimistic. Naturally, this could just be my European cynicism speaking (or perhaps I’m just a miserable bastard), but I can’t help but equate the American dream, not only with some of the greatest achievements ever accomplished by man, but also with some more unpleasant things, like certain fake-tanned presidents, an inhumane healthcare system, a slightly terrifying puritanical religious fervour which insidiously bleeds into the nation’s politics, or the no less alarming epidemic of immaculate dentistry which seems to have spread ubiquitously throughout the population. Even so, the current (and probably soon-to-be-over) era of the American Empire, with its higher global standard of living and greater personal freedoms, is probably the closest we have come to a unified paradise on Earth (provided we don’t look too far beyond the boundaries of the U.S. and its de facto colonies). I know I’d certainly rather live in a flawed “Collective West” than in any single-party dictatorship, however prosperous it might be. So, maybe, then, those chaps over on the other side of the pond haven’t done such a bad job after all? — They whip up a good Rib-eye Steak too!
Right, so this review of Walt Whitman turned into a review of the United States, for which I can only apologise. I suppose the fact that I was unwittingly led down this diversion while thinking about Whitman’s innate characteristics only serves as more evidence that his status as the American national poet is well justified.
---
Muscial Association:
Hello Brother — Louis Armstrong
The weather has been gorgeous lately, and so I have mostly been reading Leaves of Grass in the quiet of the back garden, the gentle rustle of the leaves in the breeze and the twittering of birds the natural sonic accompaniment to my Whitman experience. For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll ignore how distracted and irritated I have sometimes become at some of the other more earthly sounds which creep into my idyllic oasis: distant trains shrieking and clattering along the Midland Main Line, boy racers zooming up and down Watling Street, exultant in the nasal hum of their obnoxiously loud exhausts, the occasional rumble of a heavy Atlantic bound Heathrow departure on the ULTIB 1J, or the awful bassy pop music that the twat a few houses away subjects the wider Radlett conurbation to all weekend all summer… — we ignore these things because, despite the twats and the noise pollution, Whitman’s natural outdoorsy naturalism mostly shines through anyway. There’s something untethered and loose about his writing and his graceful optimism makes him just the right tonic on a quiet summer’s day, away from the other cares of the world. Moreover, if he teaches me anything, it is to see the beauty in things that displease me.
When he’s at his best, he feels almost entirely free, and reading him filled me with images of myself swooping phantasmagorically around various scenes of American life, billowing around at random like an uprooted dandelion seed buffeted by a gentle breeze.
His free verse technique is a strange invention. Were it not for the fact that each sentence begins on a new line, I think I’d struggle to properly distinguish between it and straightforward prose writing; but, setting semantics aside, the effect of Whitman’s writing (be it prose or verse or some other thing entirely) is one of soaring rootlessness.
He talks endlessly about himself, but in a non-specific sense, morphing into whatever he needs to be for each scene, as though he literally is the same thing as everything around him. Leaves of Grass might be the work of a fantastically inflated ego, and maybe you could interpret it as a solipsistic appraisal of life (as though Whitman is saying he is the greatest thing in creation), but that’s clearly not the intent (even if it may be that the case that his verses could only have been written by the hand of a man with a fairly puffed up view of himself). And, although Leaves of Grass is decidedly a book that elevates the American ideal — which exalts the sanctity of the individual above all else — I also sensed that it contains shades of Eastern philosophy, mixed in in a way that reveals the apparent polarities of Western individualism and Eastern unity to be, at their cores, not too different after all; for, if every individual is sanctified for being a part of creation, that’s essentially the same thing as saying we’re all part of the unified pattern of Samsara-like waves.
This idea reminded me of one of my favourite passages in War and Peace: Pierre Bezukhov, held captive by the French, looks up at the night sky and, from his confines, recognises his connection to all things:
The full moon stood high in the limpid sky. Far away forests and fields that had been invisible beyond the confines of the camp were now coming into sight. And out there beyond the forests and fields lay all the shimmering, beckoning distance of infinity. Pierre glanced up at the sky and the play of the stars receding into the depths. ‘And it’s all mine, and it’s all within me, and it all adds up to me!’ thought Pierre. ‘And they caught all that, shut it up in a shed and boarded it in!’
Pierre is thinking something very similar to that which is expressed in the line of poetry from which Leaves of Grass takes its name, perhaps the most critical line in the whole book (and one which is even more impressive for having been written about 70 years before science had developed any understanding of stellar nuclear fusion):
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.
What I think Tolstoy and Whitman are getting at, is that the sovereignty of the individual comes from the positive and optimistic idea that creation is above criticism — that it is sacred — and that by existing as an atom within creation, the individual must be raised to the status of a revered object which deserves to be set free and celebrated for its majesty.
Whitman sees this idea through an American lens of the kind which paints the ethos of the United States almost like a religion — a religion which (complete with unchangeable sacred text) promises to build paradise on Earth. It’s, therefore, no surprise that he has become the American national poet.
Looking up from my Whitman and watching over my summery garden, I wonder if Whitman’s American paradise ever truly was a vision close to realisation. I suspect not — not quite. The rest of the democratic West (the “Collective West”, as Mr Putin puts it) certainly wouldn’t look the same today had there not been some degree of American influence over the last century. Hell, my country would have probably fallen to Naziism were it not for “the New World, with all its power and might, [stepping] forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old”. Even so, I can’t help but wonder whether Whitman’s vision was always slightly too optimistic. Naturally, this could just be my European cynicism speaking (or perhaps I’m just a miserable bastard), but I can’t help but equate the American dream, not only with some of the greatest achievements ever accomplished by man, but also with some more unpleasant things, like certain fake-tanned presidents, an inhumane healthcare system, a slightly terrifying puritanical religious fervour which insidiously bleeds into the nation’s politics, or the no less alarming epidemic of immaculate dentistry which seems to have spread ubiquitously throughout the population. Even so, the current (and probably soon-to-be-over) era of the American Empire, with its higher global standard of living and greater personal freedoms, is probably the closest we have come to a unified paradise on Earth (provided we don’t look too far beyond the boundaries of the U.S. and its de facto colonies). I know I’d certainly rather live in a flawed “Collective West” than in any single-party dictatorship, however prosperous it might be. So, maybe, then, those chaps over on the other side of the pond haven’t done such a bad job after all? — They whip up a good Rib-eye Steak too!
Right, so this review of Walt Whitman turned into a review of the United States, for which I can only apologise. I suppose the fact that I was unwittingly led down this diversion while thinking about Whitman’s innate characteristics only serves as more evidence that his status as the American national poet is well justified.
---
Muscial Association:
Hello Brother — Louis Armstrong
September 18, 2023
Apžvelginėti poeziją – tai kažkokia tokia specifinė sporto šaka, kurios aš visai neįvaldęs. Tai būsiu lakoniškas.
Whitmanas – sąrašų meistras. Tai pirmas teiginys, kuris man ateina galvon. Atrodo, kad jis tiesiog vardina viską, kas užeina ant seilės. Atrodo, bet. Tai savo sąrašais jis piešia vaizdų kaleidoskopą, kuris atsiveria nerealiom platumom. Nes Whitmanas dar ir neįtikėtinai vizualus. Kita vertus, šitaip teigdamas aš jį sumenkinu. Nes skaitydamas Whitmaną ne tik regi vaizdus, girdi klykiant žuvėdras, girgždant seno vežimo ratą, užuodi medvilnės rinkėjo prakaitą ar garuojančią po lietaus pievą.
Žodžiu – klasika (ir čia ne aš sugalvojau).
Ir negaliu nepaminėti puikaus ir pagarbos verto vertėjų (persiprašau už netyčinę tautologiją) dueto – Mariaus Buroko ir Kasparo Pociaus darbo.
Whitmanas – sąrašų meistras. Tai pirmas teiginys, kuris man ateina galvon. Atrodo, kad jis tiesiog vardina viską, kas užeina ant seilės. Atrodo, bet. Tai savo sąrašais jis piešia vaizdų kaleidoskopą, kuris atsiveria nerealiom platumom. Nes Whitmanas dar ir neįtikėtinai vizualus. Kita vertus, šitaip teigdamas aš jį sumenkinu. Nes skaitydamas Whitmaną ne tik regi vaizdus, girdi klykiant žuvėdras, girgždant seno vežimo ratą, užuodi medvilnės rinkėjo prakaitą ar garuojančią po lietaus pievą.
Žodžiu – klasika (ir čia ne aš sugalvojau).
Ir negaliu nepaminėti puikaus ir pagarbos verto vertėjų (persiprašau už netyčinę tautologiją) dueto – Mariaus Buroko ir Kasparo Pociaus darbo.
February 4, 2020
Whitman doesn't care for rhyme and some of his verses don't "sound" quite aesthetically pleasing in my mind, but oh, does he know how to use language! Really beautiful word constructions, figures of speech and metaphors, all of which are definitely his strength and, I suspect, one of the chiefest reasons why he's as popular as he is.
I had about four favourite poems from this collection, two of which are very famous. One is the poem O Captain! My Captain!, which I've read in full for the first time here after first encountering it in a Robin Williams film, and the other is I sing of the body electric, and both were particularly expressive and moving. Very recommended, if you ever want to try a bit of poetry!
I had about four favourite poems from this collection, two of which are very famous. One is the poem O Captain! My Captain!, which I've read in full for the first time here after first encountering it in a Robin Williams film, and the other is I sing of the body electric, and both were particularly expressive and moving. Very recommended, if you ever want to try a bit of poetry!
March 21, 2020
“I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles”
‘I will not make poems with reference to parts,
But I will make poems, songs, thoughts, with reference to ensemble,
And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to all days,
And I will not make a poem nor the least part of a poem but has reference to the soul,
Because having look’d at the objects of the universe,
I find there is no one nor any particle of one but has reference to the
soul ‘
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles”
‘I will not make poems with reference to parts,
But I will make poems, songs, thoughts, with reference to ensemble,
And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to all days,
And I will not make a poem nor the least part of a poem but has reference to the soul,
Because having look’d at the objects of the universe,
I find there is no one nor any particle of one but has reference to the
soul ‘
February 20, 2022
I first heard of this book in middle school and my English teacher told me and my class that is book it’s very well… has some themes in it that would be inappropriate for a middle schooler to read. So much so that my teacher told us not to read til college but here I am in high school reading this. This is my form of rebellion reading a naughty book from the 19th century oh my! Whitman has truly opened my eyes to want an egoist and self pitying person can truly write.
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