***Poet’s Corner-Young America’s Walt Whitman’s “Leaves Of Grass”
DVD Review
American Experience: Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman and various modern commentators, PBS Productions, 2008
Sure, it is always appropriate to thumb through the pages of the 19th century poet laureate of democracy Walt Whitman’s “Leaves Of Grass”. After wading through Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier and the other Brahmin and Brahmin wannabe poets who dominated the 19th century ‘aristocratic’ European-influenced American poetic academy old white-bearded Walt is like a breath of fresh air. And let’s put it this way, while everyone has, and should, take a peek at those other 19th century poets, if no other reason that to compare work, it is old Walt that those of us in the 21st century WANT to read. Therefore, it is appropriate that PBS’s “American Experience" in 2008 produce a documentary that is, while filled with biographic information, centered on Whitman’s long struggle to produce his masterpiece, “Leaves Of Grass”.
This documentary does yeoman’s service in setting the context in which Walt Whitman had to work, including the trials and tribulations of his long suffering over his troubled working class family affairs; his free-wheeling experiences in breaking out of the family and establishing himself as a newspaper writer in New York City in the pre-Civil War period; his invention of himself as a 'proto-hippie' in that city’s bohemian milieu: his various, mainly homosexual, romantic experiences that eventually find themselves noted heavily throughout his master work; his dramatic and traumatic Civil War time nursing services to the Union wounded; the shock of Lincoln’s death; and, his post-war struggles to expand and deepen his poetic works. That sets the pace for the many ‘talking head’ academic commentaries about the meaning of Whitman’s work, his place as the poetic, warts and all, 19th century democratic champion of the fragile American republican experience, and the breakthrough nature of the more or less explicit sexual, erotic and homoerotic passages in his work.
Finally, poets like other types of writers, run through period of fashion and neglect. My recent road back to an appreciation of Whitman is a case in point. I have been running through (for the nth time) and reviewing the work of the 1950s “beat” writer Jack Kerouac (himself the subject of the vicissitudes of fashion) in this space. Kerouac makes clear (as do many other writers and poets) that Whitman’s poems, his lifestyle and his championship of the “common man” deeply influenced him in his early formative days as he struggled to write. That is a very common story when the name Walt Whitman comes up. So if you need a little refresher on Whitman this well-done documentary fills the bill. But, really, go read some of his poems
Walt Whitman - One’s-Self I Sing.
ONE’S-SELF I sing—a simple, separate Person;
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-masse.
Of Physiology from top to toe I sing;
Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse—I say the
Form complete is worthier far;
The Female equally with the male I sing.
Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful—for freest action form’d, under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.
Walt Whitman - To a Historian.
YOU who celebrate bygones!
Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races—the life that has
exhibited itself;
Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and
priests;
I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself, in his own
rights,
Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, (the great
pride of man in himself;)
Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be,
I project the history of the future.
Walt Whitman - Pioneers! O Pioneers!
1
COME, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers!
2
For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!
3
O you youths, western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
4
Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers!
5
All the past we leave behind;
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, Pioneers! O pioneers!
6
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers!
7
We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines within;
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! O pioneers!
8
Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come, Pioneers! O pioneers!
9
From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein’d;
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
10
O resistless, restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult—I am rapt with love for all, Pioneers! O pioneers!
11
Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang’d and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon’d mistress, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
12
See, my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us urging, Pioneers! O pioneers!
13
On and on, the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill’d,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping, Pioneers! O pioneers!
14
O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill’d, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
15
All the pulses of the world,
Falling in, they beat for us, with the western movement beat;
Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
16
Life’s involv’d and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves, Pioneers! O pioneers!
17
All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying, Pioneers! O pioneers!
18
I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
19
Lo! the darting bowling orb!
Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams, Pioneers! O pioneers!
20
These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
We to-day’s procession heading, we the route for travel clearing, Pioneers! O pioneers!
21
O you daughters of the west!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, Pioneers! O pioneers!
22
Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep—you have done your work;)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us, Pioneers! O pioneers!
23
Not for delectations sweet;
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious;
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment, Pioneers! O pioneers!
24
Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock’d and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground, Pioneers! O pioneers!
25
Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to pause oblivious, Pioneers! O pioneers!
26
Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the day-break call—hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind;
Swift! to the head of the army!—swift! spring to your places, Pioneers! O pioneers.
DVD Review
American Experience: Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman and various modern commentators, PBS Productions, 2008
Sure, it is always appropriate to thumb through the pages of the 19th century poet laureate of democracy Walt Whitman’s “Leaves Of Grass”. After wading through Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier and the other Brahmin and Brahmin wannabe poets who dominated the 19th century ‘aristocratic’ European-influenced American poetic academy old white-bearded Walt is like a breath of fresh air. And let’s put it this way, while everyone has, and should, take a peek at those other 19th century poets, if no other reason that to compare work, it is old Walt that those of us in the 21st century WANT to read. Therefore, it is appropriate that PBS’s “American Experience" in 2008 produce a documentary that is, while filled with biographic information, centered on Whitman’s long struggle to produce his masterpiece, “Leaves Of Grass”.
This documentary does yeoman’s service in setting the context in which Walt Whitman had to work, including the trials and tribulations of his long suffering over his troubled working class family affairs; his free-wheeling experiences in breaking out of the family and establishing himself as a newspaper writer in New York City in the pre-Civil War period; his invention of himself as a 'proto-hippie' in that city’s bohemian milieu: his various, mainly homosexual, romantic experiences that eventually find themselves noted heavily throughout his master work; his dramatic and traumatic Civil War time nursing services to the Union wounded; the shock of Lincoln’s death; and, his post-war struggles to expand and deepen his poetic works. That sets the pace for the many ‘talking head’ academic commentaries about the meaning of Whitman’s work, his place as the poetic, warts and all, 19th century democratic champion of the fragile American republican experience, and the breakthrough nature of the more or less explicit sexual, erotic and homoerotic passages in his work.
Finally, poets like other types of writers, run through period of fashion and neglect. My recent road back to an appreciation of Whitman is a case in point. I have been running through (for the nth time) and reviewing the work of the 1950s “beat” writer Jack Kerouac (himself the subject of the vicissitudes of fashion) in this space. Kerouac makes clear (as do many other writers and poets) that Whitman’s poems, his lifestyle and his championship of the “common man” deeply influenced him in his early formative days as he struggled to write. That is a very common story when the name Walt Whitman comes up. So if you need a little refresher on Whitman this well-done documentary fills the bill. But, really, go read some of his poems
Walt Whitman - One’s-Self I Sing.
ONE’S-SELF I sing—a simple, separate Person;
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-masse.
Of Physiology from top to toe I sing;
Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse—I say the
Form complete is worthier far;
The Female equally with the male I sing.
Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful—for freest action form’d, under the laws divine,
The Modern Man I sing.
Walt Whitman - To a Historian.
YOU who celebrate bygones!
Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races—the life that has
exhibited itself;
Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and
priests;
I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself, in his own
rights,
Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, (the great
pride of man in himself;)
Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be,
I project the history of the future.
Walt Whitman - Pioneers! O Pioneers!
1
COME, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers!
2
For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!
3
O you youths, western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,
Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
4
Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers!
5
All the past we leave behind;
We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world,
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, Pioneers! O pioneers!
6
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers!
7
We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines within;
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! O pioneers!
8
Colorado men are we,
From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come, Pioneers! O pioneers!
9
From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein’d;
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
10
O resistless, restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all!
O I mourn and yet exult—I am rapt with love for all, Pioneers! O pioneers!
11
Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all,)
Raise the fang’d and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon’d mistress, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
12
See, my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us urging, Pioneers! O pioneers!
13
On and on, the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill’d,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping, Pioneers! O pioneers!
14
O to die advancing on!
Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come?
Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill’d, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
15
All the pulses of the world,
Falling in, they beat for us, with the western movement beat;
Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
16
Life’s involv’d and varied pageants,
All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work,
All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves, Pioneers! O pioneers!
17
All the hapless silent lovers,
All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked,
All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying, Pioneers! O pioneers!
18
I too with my soul and body,
We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way,
Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing, Pioneers! O
pioneers!
19
Lo! the darting bowling orb!
Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets,
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams, Pioneers! O pioneers!
20
These are of us, they are with us,
All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
We to-day’s procession heading, we the route for travel clearing, Pioneers! O pioneers!
21
O you daughters of the west!
O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, Pioneers! O pioneers!
22
Minstrels latent on the prairies!
(Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep—you have done your work;)
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us, Pioneers! O pioneers!
23
Not for delectations sweet;
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious;
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment, Pioneers! O pioneers!
24
Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock’d and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground, Pioneers! O pioneers!
25
Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to pause oblivious, Pioneers! O pioneers!
26
Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the day-break call—hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind;
Swift! to the head of the army!—swift! spring to your places, Pioneers! O pioneers.
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