Mark Doty’s “Letter to Walt Whitman” is one of the many pieces of literature composed as a response to Whitman himself. Many writers speak to Whitman in their works, and have for decades, but what stood out most to me in Doty’s address to Whitman was the direct and intimate tone he utilizes. Doty even begins the poem by saying, “I hope this finds you. I know you’ve been bothered / all century, poets lining up / to claim lineage.” In acknowledging that he is one of the many poets to reach out to Whitman’s persona, Doty seems to be trying to distance himself from other poets and establish his work as worthy of Whitman’s highly regarded recognition.
Similarly to the way in which Whitman will reach out to the reader in an attempt to connect to whomever the reader may be by using an ambiguous “You” in his poetry, Doty directly address Whitman, but informally, calling him “Walt” throughout this poem. However, this isn’t the only way Doty tries to connect to Whitman on a direct and intimate level. The form of this poem is also Whitmanian in its long verses and breaks in thought, which flow from idea to idea. Aside from this being an open letter to Whitman, as if Whitman were still alive or even listening from the dead, and following Whitman’s style of writing, Doty goes a step further in this poem in his attempt to connect to Whitman by literally going to Whitman’s house in modern day Camden.
Doty continues to align himself with Whitman through briefly discussing the current political status of America and how Whitman would have felt about this new democratic vista. In true Whitmanian form Doty observes the world and other people around him, attempting to feel the nationalistic or universal connection that Whitman spoke of in his work. Also interestingly, Doty seems to feel connected to Whitman on a sexual level as well, since it can be assumed that Doty is in a homosexual relationship, and even goes as far as comparing his romantic relationship with “Paul” to Whitman’s inferred romantic relationship with Peter Doyle.
Like many of the poets who address Whitman, Doty’s poem seems to contain mostly his inner musings about how Whitman might feel about American society today. In this poem, it seems that Doty attempts to personify Whitmanian ideology in order to filter modern America through to the dead Whitman he is speaking to. I feel that Doty’s direct and intimate tone makes for a compelling piece that our dear Walt would approve of.
It’s interesting that you comment on the sense of intimacy that Doty constructs between himself and Whitman in the poem. I’ve read a lot of Mark Doty’s poetry and some of his prose, most notably his long essay “Still Life With Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy.” In many of Doty’s works he attempts to develop an aesthetic and lay out its principles based on the notion of intimacy. (Doty uses this exact term). More importantly, he connects the notion of intimacy with art through the framing of objects, within “moments of attention” to their physical qualities that is by nature of universal understanding. Doty seeks and finds intimacy with not only the objects and situations of which he writes but also with his readers in the same way that Whitman sought his “intimate” and “perfect equal”: through ecstatic contemplation of the physical. I didn’t know that Doty had contributed to the catalogue of homages and responses to Whitman’s poetry and invocations, but it seems that their connection seems natural and inevitable.
(I forgot to log in before I posted my comment above, oops.)
I find Doty’s poem captivating not only for its easy and intimate tone, and not only for his superb meditation on certain moments of attention (as when he summons Whitman’s presence via the stuffed parrot in Camden), but also in the way he carefully outlines how radical Whitman’s metaphor of the male-male physical bond (or any such bond) for political possibility really. In some ways, I wish Doty had summoned a more position conclusion: the trip to the local hardware store is anti-climactic to say the least, but it is difficult, these days, to see Whitman through the gaze of fluorescent bulbs.