Strand, Satan & Stevens

I go into reading Mark Strand's poetry optimistically. I am rooting for him. I'm not sure why this is. Perhaps it is his smiling face peering back at me from the book jacket, apparently happy and perhaps jovial. I do not find what I expect. Circularity, gloom, flux, and inevitability are waiting for my arrival. I greet them in The Dance.

I could pull some fantastic BS out of this poem. One example is that he is talking about the fall of Lucifer. In the first stanza he is the shining light of line two; an archangel in heaven. In line three of the second stanza we witness the result of his rebellion in heaven: "The light falls like an anchor..." The third stanza shows his new home in Hell, the "burning house" of line 12. Of course the chances of this explication being an accurate representation of Strand's thoughts while composing this piece are slight. I did it for fun and to show that one has to address the entire poem when theorizing about its meaning. Although I'm liking the biblical idea more as I reread this.

The Dance is a great example of how Strand might deceive the reader into thinking that maybe this will be the poem that doesn't end in the dark or with death. That last line about being borne into Heaven is uplifting, right? Not so much. Keep in mind that it has been preceded by the first two stanzas ending with "one foot in the grave" and "being pulled down constantly." He is not be optimistic in the final line, but saying that although we may pull ourselves up out of death and despair, we'll end up right back there eventually. This refers back to the idea of circuity in Strand's poems. If he had said borne again in stead of "again and again," I might believe he was speaking of redemption or ascending to Heaven after death. By repeating that word though, he assures the reader that the cycle of falling will continue.

Also typical in much of his work is the change in perspective of the poet, the flux, if you will, from one sense of being to another. Here the poet sees himself from out of body then experiences such a transition when "Slowly I dance out of the burning house of my head."

I, for one, am thrilled at the disappointment regarding my baseless expectations of Mark Strand. Happy-go-lucky poetry doesn't suit me the way decent parenting doesn't suit Dina Lohan. I love that he manages to communicate his unsettling strangeness through clear and coherent language. He is at once accessible and aloof. Thank goodness that he wasn't such a good painter, and that he happened upon "The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens" during his years before writing.

Ashbery's Building of Poetry

John Ashbery's poetry takes me just out of my comfort zone for explication. Not because his poetry is beyond my comprehension, but because it is not immediately accessible. With almost every other poet I've encountered, in any given piece there is something to latch onto that starts me on the path to (my own) understanding. I'm finding it difficult to locate that "in" in much of Ashbery's work. I'm taking this as a learning opportunity and will try to burrow into "These Lacustrine Cities," which I chose simply because I did not know what lacustrine meant. I know what it means now, and it really doesn't help. Here's my best educated attempt at getting to the heart of this poem.
He is comparing the building of a city to the creation of a poem, and the role of man (citizen of the city) with the role of poet. In both contexts, the individual must set aside all personal hopes and desires and focus all his energy on what is necessary for the good of the city/poem. Once the city/poem is complete, time and history will forever change it. This he tells us in stanza two where he says:

"...into the past for swans and tapering branches, burning

until all that hate was transformed into useless love."

The city/poem takes on a life of its own and the creator is left with nothing but himself, and all the personal desire that he set aside for the sake of his work returns with nowhere to go. This, Ashbery describes in the third stanza.

"Then you are left with an idea of yourself

and the feeling of ascending emptiness..."

Indeed, when the poem is finished and history (or the reader) has had it's way with it, only a memory is left; or in the case of a city, a monument is constructed. Even thought the city still exists, we only pay attention to the monument, to the more manageable representation of the city. Similarly, the finished poem is stripped of it's singular enormity, and banished perhaps to an anthology or other collection. Through this banishment (lines 16-20), the poet now gets caught up in time as his creation did. He is rendered incapable of anything other than "nursing some private project." The private project is almost certainly the next poem he is composing. The last stanza describes how, for the poet, every poem is akin to the rise and fall of a civilization; a monumental achievement that he knows will one day be relegated to a footnote in history.

"You have built a mountain of something,

Thoughtfully pouring all your energy into this single monument,

Whose wind is desire starching a petal,

Whose disappointment broke into a rainbow of tears."

For John Ashbery, the act of creating and finishing a poem is like turning a mountain into a mole-hill. A thought not dissimilar to some of his fellow modernists and post-modernists. It's too bad that they aren't able to see the universal transcendence to their private monuments.

Sexton vs. Plath vs. Labels

To lump Anne Sexton with the "confessional" poets is a disservice. Simply because she studied with Robert Lowell (who's book Life Studies was the first to be dubbed as confessional) and Sylvia Plath does not make it so. Since Plath was certainly confessional, I think the fact that they were friends and contemporary peers, and both died at their own hand, forces the label on Sexton as well. I think the difference between Plath and Sexton is this:
Plath conveys the disillusionment, horror, highs and lows of her life through her poetry as a means of release. All the doubt and anxiety she felt became, for a time at least, not hers as she transferred it to the page. Then it was ours. Unfortunately, the well from which these feelings sprung ran deep, and she could never expunge fast enough. Her work was more nakedly autobiographical than Sexton's. Confessional is an appropriate label for her.
Sexton, through her personal narrative was examining the horror in society, in particular relationships and intimacy. She wasn't so much exposing her soul to us as she was letting the dark and uncomfortable of the world filter through her soul. Sexton craved the spotlight. She was only completely comfortable when she was "on," reading her poetry. A confession is a deeply personal thing, and one who is making it does not draw attention to herself. I know that Plath submitted poems from an early age and was published often, but she still kept herself at arms length from the spotlight.
I sense that writing poetry for Plath was like cutting herself open and bleeding words on to paper. I see Sexton as a black hole who sucks everything around her into herself and then spits poetry out the other end.

Deep and Dark "puddle-wonderful"

Cummings is a great poet to spend some time with in a modern poetry class. Although his work does not demonstrate or command the authority in voice of a Stevens or Whitman, there is much to be learned (and un-learned) from this quiet genius. Most important is to get past the apparent quirkiness of the design of his poems. Yes, he misuses or abandons punctuation; yes he breaks lines and words non-traditionally and spreads them all over the page. But to focus on this aspect of his work is dismissive of his love of form (see one of his sonnets such as "["next to of course god america i]"), his dark satire, and all of his strong personal and political beliefs. Because we are traditionally exposed to few or one of his poems in high school (almost certainly "[in Just-]"), Cummings too often is glossed over as a one-trick-pony, flash in the pan who wrote that wonderfully fun poem about spring.
By beginning, at this level, with a more adult explication of "[in Just-]," we emerge from the world of the sinister balloonman shaken. We are forced to look deeper into Cummings' playground, to see what might be lurking behind the parentheses.
I wished to look at a poem I had not read before, and I found "[Buffalo Bill 's] to be quite interesting. Right away the reader is put off by the use of the word "defunct" in line 2. The subject is not exactly dead, he instead has stopped functioning, as if he were a programmed, automated entertainment machine rather than a person. Immediately we are told that this elegy (if that is even what it will be) is not exactly going to mourn or praise the deceased. Indeed the poem evolves into a satirical account of Buffalo Bill's progression from army hero to side-show act, ending with Cummings' ultimate statement of contempt in line 10:

"how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death"

A common device in Cummings' poetry is the use of childlike voice and perspective. He employs that here to show the change in perspective that he perhaps has experienced toward Buffalo Bill. The combining of nine words into one in line 5 emulates the rapid, overexcited speech a of a young man in adoration of his idol. Yet his sarcastic address to death is pure angry adult. In order to grow up, he has had to tear down his idol. Looking at Cummings' full body of work, I find that the prevalence of satire and black comedy reminds me a great deal of America's greatest satirist, Kurt Vonnegut.

Definitely Not A River of Dreams

"The Bitter River" is as important to society as Hughes' more popular "Dream Deferred" poems. Here he eloquently uses the metaphor of the bitter, muddy river to channel his continuing outrage and weariness with the continued racial and social injustice in the South. Written when he was 40, this is perhaps a follow up to his earlier "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," written when he was just 17. The river has changed from one that can "turn all golden in the sunset," (Speaks. Line 8), to one that reflects "no stars by night, no sun by day," (Bitter. Line 23-24). It is immediately apparent that the optimism of his youth has been eroded by the river of oppression, ironically grown stronger since the abolishment of slavery.
With it's dedication to two young black boys who were lynched, Hughes is obviously addressing racial injustice in its overt, physical, violent form. The poem is enclosed by the reference to this violence in the dedication and the last stanza. Hidden within the violence, Hughes is lamenting about the more subtle social injustice he is seeing. He uncovers it in many places. He tells us in lines 16-20 that although blacks might be allowed an education, it is useless as it will never get to be put to use. Although they may be trained in certain vocations, the training is moot as nobody will hire them.
The third stanza is really the heart of this piece. With their false promises of better days through patience, hard work, and education (lines 38-43), the wealthy, white ruling class is merely patronizing blacks. Hughes knows this, but when he speaks out, he is labeled "Disruptor! Agitator! Troublemaker!" By pointing out the social injustice, he runs the risk of becoming a victim of the violence of racial hatred. He ends the stanza with a wholly depressing thought. Because blacks have been allowed certain liberties and freedoms, they have once again become bound to the rules and suppression that whites have imposed on them. Instead of being slaves in a physical sense, they are socially enslaved. If they question their "freedom" they are considered ungrateful troublemakers.
In the fourth stanza, by repeating over and over how tired he is: of dreams broken, of hopes dashed, of imprisonment, of patronization, of segregation, of being poor; he paints a picture of a man (and a race) that feels utterly defeated. The tragedy is that Hughes offers no hope of redemption or change within this work. One cannot but be moved by the despair in those last two lines, again repeating tired, tired. He is a broken man who has lost the one last thing that a human has to cling to when everything else in the world has been taken from him: hope.

Finally, "Silence"

I thought I had stumbled across a poem of Marianne Moore's that was maybe less complex than the majority of her work, in "Silence." I was woefully wrong. At first glance everything about this poem is different from the anthologised material we had to digest. The jagged line breaks are missing. Although it is often hard to find, almost all of her verses utilize end rhyme. There is no discernible end rhyme here. And good luck uncovering meter in this one. So I dove right into the meaning, which again appeared to be rather straightforward and accessible.

"Superior people" know when it's time to leave, or less obviously, when to shut their mouths. They don't need to be prompted, or given constant guidance (lines 2-3). In a word (or two), they are "self reliant." A superior person's understanding will become apparent, not in silence exactly, but in "restraint," in not speaking. Moore makes sure to emphasize the difference. She ends by commenting on the quote: "Make my house your inn," saying that inns are not residences. This seemed obvious enough as an inn is somewhere one stays for a short period of time and goes on his way. It's a clever way of telling one's guest that he is welcome, but not for too long. I should have been content at that point, closed the proverbial book on this poem and made a sandwich or something. But no, I had to read it again, and damn it, now I'm hungry.

Further examination revealed what I had missed on previous readings, that only two and a half lines (15 words total) are not quoted from outside sources; in this case overheard pieces of conversation. I also didn't pay attention to the fact that there are three distinct voices speaking: the father, the daughter (who Moore has overheard), and Moore herself. Notes on the poem indicate that Moore has embellished the first quote. So not only are we hearing Moore's voice overall, as it is her poem, but embedded within the voice of the father as well. Within the "voice" of the father also is the voice of the daughter since, although Moore is quoting the father, the words she uses are those of the daughter. Confused yet? Wondering what all of these voices are actually saying? Yeah, me too. If anyone out there has some insight - please, please help!

Here's the best I can do with "Silence." Dad realized early on the genius of his daughter, be it Moore, or the overheard woman, I don't care, I have a headache now. So he is reminding the girl, in a way that a "superior person" would appreciate, that children (especially female children) should be seen and not heard. It was merely a way for him to maintain control of his home and retain his intellectual authority. This is why silence becomes restraint in line 12. Possibly, the "self reliance" from line five foreshadows "Make my house your inn." He's not so subtly telling his daughter to shut up and move on, literally and figuratively.

I'm getting some snacks . . . and an aspirin.

A Cold Frost?

Robert Frost was not a personable man. We know this from biography, and it radiates from his poems. The grade school image of the nature loving, road less traveling poet that we have all been force fed gets turned inside out upon a mature examination of his work. This is a good thing. It makes Frost a rounded human being. It makes us re-read and re-think. We get to see his dark side, which has been lurking in many of his poems; right under our birch swinging, apple picking, woods stopping noses. Once we as readers are finally tuned in to this aspect of Frost's work however, we run the risk of seeking it everywhere, in every poem. Sometimes we are so focused on feeling our way through the dark room of the poem, that we don't see the sunlight blazing through the open window. I think "Out, Out--" is one of those poems that we want to be dark, when in reality it is, well just reality.

Certainly, this isn't a happy poem. While cutting wood with a buzz-saw, a boy accidentally cuts his hand off, and then dies as a result of his injury. Downbeat? Yes. Dark? I think not. One must keep in mind certain facts when reading this poem

1. This was a farm in the early 1900s. Every person in the family worked the farm. Their entire existence depended on the farm. If it didn't continue to run successfully, they didn't eat, let alone pay bills.
2. Frost titles this poem in reference to a passage from Shakespeare's Macbeth. It's Act V Scene V, lines 17-28. I'm not quoting it, and shame on you if you don't have a copy of Shakespeare's complete works in your collection. I will paraphrase though. Life is short, full of fuss and turmoil, and ultimately meaningless.

Now that we are caught up, we can tackle the last two lines of this poem. A lot of readers are offended at how callous the family of this boy are. How can they just go back to work after such a tragedy? Because they have to. Because if they shut their lives down and spend a day, two days, a week grieving, then the farm suffers and they jeopardize their existence. They are now short one person, and his work has to be absorbed by the other members of the family.

I will go as far as saying that the boy let himself die. He did not cut his own hand off. He technically did not commit suicide. Once he knew his hand was gone; once "He saw all spoiled" (line25), he knew he was of no value to the farm any more. So he mentally and physically stopped fighting against his injury - he allowed himself to die so that he would not be a burden to the operation; he would not be a non-contributing mouth to feed. I see the boy as a self-sacrificing hero.

I love the impersonal nature of this poem. The boy, the sister, the doctor, the watcher, "those that lifted eyes" (line 4), and "they" (the family) are never assigned names. The most personified thing in the poem is the buzz-saw with its snarling and rattling. Upon hearing that supper was ready the saw was also hungry, and it was not shy about what it wanted to eat.

Back to our Shakespeare reference: the boy represents the brevity of life, "brief candle." The saw represents the "sound and fury." His death was meaningless, "signifying nothing."

13 Isn't Always Bad Luck

Certainly my favorite Stevens poem, and one of my favorites of the modern era, is "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." What initially drew me to this poem, aside from the 14 brilliant pictures it paints (one per stanza + one overall), was the fact that I could not duplicate it. No matter what the subject, I would always end up describing it, which is not at all what Stevens has done with his blackbird. Instead of a meditation on truth and perspective, I'd invariably end up with 13 lame to semi-lame descriptions of _____. I still try now and then. And, though I'll never fool myself into thinking I could put on paper anything close to the genius of Wallace Stevens, I'd like to believe that a more mature perspective and a deeper understanding of the poet and poem, would bridge the gap somewhat between my knock off and his original.
In spite of the title, this poem is not so much about a blackbird as it is about everything in relation to the blackbird. In each stanza, the bird is the focus upon which each reader perceives the given landscape. Since each reader will perceive and subsequently define each scene (stanza) differently, there are not just 13, but an infinite number of unique perceptions. Since each interpretation is true to each reader, there are an infinite number of truths. If we remember "The Snow Man," the implication would be that there is no real truth because every individual perspective is true. Somehow I equate this with the man who has "a mind of winter" and eventually becomes one with winter. Once he is no longer perceiving the winter scene, but belongs to it, it must cease to exist. Does that make any sense? It's quite hard to articulate properly.
On a less brain crunching note, I enjoy the flow of the poem. Not rhythmically, as any consistent rhyme or meter doesn't appear here. The poem moves well as we encounter the blackbird on its journey between the bookends of stanzas I and XIII. Although this is a "cold" poem throughout, only these two stanzas mention snow: "among twenty snowy mountains," (I) and "it was snowing and it was going to snow," (XIII). Also, these are the only scenes in which the blackbird is truly still. In stanzas III, VI, IX, X, XI, and XII it is flying or, in the case of XI, the suggestion of flight. In VII it is walking; and in V it is whistling. Stanzas II, IV, and VIII are like rest stops along the way. While technically there is no movement by the blackbird, these are like glimpses into the mind of the creator, and are different from the remaining stanzas.
I think V is the most telling section of this poem. I think this stanza conveys one of Stevens' philosophies, the distinction between what is heard and the implications of what the sound becomes after it is heard, "the blackbird whistling, or just after." When applied to poetry, I believe Stevens was fascinated with the transformation his words took from being put on the page to being taken in by the reader. Any poem is forever altered once it is encountered by even one reader. Maybe Stevens could never decide which he preferred, the act of creation or the echo of his creation in the minds of the reader.
One last thing! Of course I have to add my pop culture reference. In 1998, Pearl Jam released the album Yield, which contains a song called "Low Light," written by bassist Jeff Ament. When I heard this song, stanza XIII from "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" came immediately to mind, even though the last time I read it was about four years earlier in college. To me this song (musically more than lyrically) captured the mood of stanza XIII. Check it out and see if you agree or not.

Is Morrissey Today's Prufrock?

I relate almost everything I encounter in my reading to music or movies. This is in no way forced. All my life my retention for song lyrics and movie dialogue has been uncanny; which is remarkable considering the volume of each I have digested over the years. (Yet somehow I can't remember phone numbers I use pretty regularly without looking them up.) When reading a poem, for example, at some point a lyric or a scene pops into my head that I associate with the overall theme, or with the events of a specific portion of the work. This was the case with Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
I'm specifically referring to the four stanzas that run from line 37 to line 69. Unitl this point, Prufrock has been on his way to a tea, and is using his description of the city to describe himself and his feelings toward the event to which he is going. "Etherised" (line 3) means numb and detached. "Certain" (line 4), "muttering" (line 5), "restless" and "cheap" (line 6), "tedious" (line 8), and "overwhelming" (line 10) are all straightforward in their meaning. Taken as a group, these words paint a picture of an anxious, confused, and when placed in the larger context of the city, disillusioned man.
The stanza contained in lines 37-48 has Prufrock hesitating to enter the tea, wondering "Do I dare?" (line 38). He is either truely self-conscious and worried about what the women will think of him, or he is using that as a possible excuse to bail out. It's important that he asks "Do I dare Disturb the universe?" (lines 46-47), as this tells us how small and insignificant he feels in relation to the women and the tea.
We learn in the following stanza (lines 49-54) that he has in fact been to many such teas before. That he has in fact "measured out [his] life with coffee spoons" (line 51). In the next two stanzas Prufrock admits that he is also very familiar with these women. I think he means not the specific women that are at this tea, but the type of woman one would typically encounter at such an event. If it was the same group of women over and over, I don't think he would feel like an insect being examined as he describes in line 57, "formulated, sprawling on a pin." He doesn't know how to approach or speak to a woman when he feels this way. He continually asks himself "how should I presume?"
At this point a lyric from a song by the Smiths exploded into my head, that to me, encapsulates this entire portion of the poem:

"There's a club, if you'd like to go

You could meet somebody who really loves you

So you go, and you stand on your own

And you leave on your own

And you go home, and you cry

And you want to die."

This is from the song "How Soon is Now?" written in 1984 by Morrissey (lyric) and Johnny Marr (music) of The Smiths.
From here, other apparent similarities between the song and the poem come to light. Prufrock continues his mental debate on whether or not he should dare to speak (line 80). He never summons the courage and laments in line 84, "I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker." This sentiment is echoed by Morrissey in the subsequent lyric:

"See I've already waited too long

And all my hope is gone."

Neither Prufrock nor Morrissey's unnamed protagonist is able to overcome his shyness and lack of self-worth. Prufrock, after leaving the tea, through his continued inner monologue, tries to justify his lack of action by questioning if it would have been worth it to engage that world and those women. This starts on line 87 with "And would it have been worth it after all," and continues through the break at line 110. Here he appropriately compares himself to the most famous man of non-action in literary history, Hamlet. He claims he's not like Hamlet, and lists all the things that he (thinks he) is to proove it to himself (lines 112-119). Prufrock is right, he's not like Hamlet; but not for the reason he thinks. Hamlet finally did something. Prufrock never manages to escape from his own head.
I would love to be able to say that Morrissey had this poem in mind as he wrote "How Soon is Now?" and it is possible, as he is very well read. In fact he references a line from a different Eliot in the same song. The opening verse stems from a line in George Eliot's Middlemarch: "to be born the son of a Middlemarch manufacturer, and inevitable heir to nothing in particular." (Thanks to Simon Goddard and his great 2004 book The Smiths - Songs That Saved Your Life for that information.) Alas, I will always have the pleasure of linking one of the greatest poems of American letters with one of the greatest songs and the most intriguing and offbeat wordsmiths of my genreration.

Can One Draw a Poem?

I know we're not supposed to address poems that were discussed in class, but hey, I'm a rebel. This is relating to the E. A. Robinson poem "Miniver Cheevy." I was immediately drawn to the oddity of the short (five syllable) final line of each quatrain. Then it occured to me that as a result of this, I was able to assign shape to this poem. If I put the book down and look at it from a slight distance, each stanza looks like a funnel. On top of that, if I read the poem aloud, rhythmically each stanza sounds like a funnel. Now comes the coolest part! As I read the poem, the content follows the funnel pattern too. The events or thoughts of each quatrain dwindle to an abrupt end and filter into the next, where a tangent or temporally successive thought begins. For example, stanza two describes his nostalgia for the "days of old" and how thoughts of knights with swords on horses would "set him dancing." The next stanza picks up with that thought turned into saddness because it is not reality for him. The stanza ends with Miniver Cheevy now dreaming of ancient Greece and Camelot. This channels into the next stanza where he mourns the loss of courtly romance and chivalry that were representative of the times and places he was just dreaming of.
Or, It could all just be visual and auditory halucinations from the fever that's currently cooking my brain. I guess time will tell.

Parting Words for Walt

Since I don't have a time machine (yet), I cannot answer the question that intrigues me most about Whitman. Who is the real person behind the work? There is the egocentric, testosterone laden "I" that is the speaker in many poems. Biographers suggest that this was a persona that Whitman used to express himself through his writing. It was presented to us in class that Whitman was, in reality, not that "I." This is not uncommon in the world of literature, and I have no reason to challenge that perspective. What I really want to know is this: was he a jerk (for lack of a better term), who knew what he was, who kept that part of his personality at bay, and let it out in his poems? Or, was he introspective, and closed off emotionally; so he created the bravado persona to live a life that he wasn't living through the poet "I?" Reading the poems, one could argue either way. When I read "Song of Myself" or even the opening lines of "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," I thought that no man could be so haughty (I am the water below, I am the sun), and not be that way every moment of the day. Then I look at "I Saw in Louisianna a Live-Oak Growing," and I see a man desperate in the thought of being alone. That lonliness does not jive with an arrogant egomaniac.
Our substitute Dr. Nicosia - Dr. Nicosia - said that Whitman never had a personal (physical) relationship with anyone, male or female. I vocalized my disagreement, again citing the poem "When I Heard at the Close of the Day." It is my contention that no poet, no matter how good he or she is, can write a poem like that without the personal experience. The first thing we're taught as writers is to "write what we know." For the sake of argument, let's say that Whitman based this poem on nothing more than fantasy. Possibly the pressure of society's norms was the impetus for this work. "This will make people think I've had close relatinships," might have been Whitman's thinking. If so, then why make his lover a man? It makes no sense, as that would invoke a worse reaction from "normal" society than not having a lover at all. Maybe for me, thinking that Whitman had a secret life that was opposite what he gave us in his poetry, makes his poetry that much more more interesting.

With Some Perspetive Comes Understanding

Whitman is a tough bloke to try and categorize (as we Americans love to do). The reason we have such robust debate as to what label to slap on him, is that Whitman himself didn't know what he was. So instead of trying to force himself, he just poured it all onto the page and said "reader, you figure it out!" He takes us along on every journey where he catalogues everything he sees. Someone in class used the phrase "word vomit" to describe his poetry. This is extreme and unfair. Yes, sometimes Whitman is monotonous and repetitive. But intermingled with, and sometimes right within the catalogue of sights and items, are very striking, beautiful descriptions of non striking things. (see lines 27-48 of "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.") Any one of us could "vomit" out endless descriptions of the minutia of our day, but precious few of us are poets.
If I was initially very anti Whitman; our class discussion forced me to look shallower (first time for me, too) at his work. In doing so I was able to not get lost in the vastness of his world, and thus take away nuggets that made me not dislike him quite so such.
There are two poems that were not part of our selections that I would like to mention. The first is "When I Heard at the Close of Day." It still is undeniably Walt with the listing of activities and first word repetition. But what an achingly gorgeous love letter. This, to me, is Whitman stripped down and allowing us a glimpse of his true self.
The second poem is called "I Sit and Look Out." This is the one poem of Whitman's that I consider truly timeless. It is as relevant now as it was as he composed it, and unfortunately will be in another 150 years. For the first time when I read a poem of his, I picture him not roaming the landscape or mingling with crowds, but alone and pensive. I somehow feel that this was a rare instance that a poem didn't explode from his head to the page. Although it is his style, I feel this piece was slowly crafted. It is a departure for Whitman as here he relinquishes his role as active participant and becomes only the passive observer. The last line succinctly tells us how he feels about that perspective.

Knee-Jerk Whitman Post

All those who worship at the altar of Walt Whitman bear in mind that art is subjective. One man's Jackson Pollack is another man's mess that his four year old daughter made in the playroom today. Also know that although one may not enjoy a particular piece of art or artist (and by artist I mean writer, painter, sculptor, actor, etc.), it does not necessarily mean that one does not appreciate the significance of that art or artist. For example, I really hate Led Zeppelin's music. This is traditionally met with gasps and cursing, and questions regarding my masculinity. While this ado is occurring, my new enemies aren't hearing me say that while I don't care for the music, I still have enormous respect and understanding for Zeppelin's contribution to music and the profound influence they had on rock in the last 30 years. In other words, I get it, I just don't dig it.
Which brings me back to our friend Walt. Certainly he was influential. Probably he was the most influential poet in America. Beat poet Allen Ginsberg would cite Whitman as one of his major influences over 60 years after his death. He certainly wrote in a style that was drastically different from predecessors like Blake, Pope, and Burns. He wrote of himself and of nature, often intertwined and indistiguishable from one another. He turned away from abstract ideas centered around "greater than the self" religion and faith (18th century) and metaphysics (17th century). No, Whitman made it all about himself. Well, not completely. Sometimes it was about what we of the future would think of him and the things he was thinking about.
this isn't over . . .