Archive | Uncategorized

I found Walt Whitman’s portrayal of women interesting because, while he praises the importance of women and discusses them alongside men, he hones in on their reproductive abilities and involvement within the private sphere. On an initial note, I found his inclusion of women praise-worthy, and yet, the manner in which he includes them becomes […]

After reading the poems “Out of May’s Shows Selected,” “Going Somewhere,” and “Continuities,” I was surprised at the incredibly hopefully and optimistic outlook the late Whitman left for his readers. Although through our weeks in class Whitman has almost always proven to be a forward looking poet, after last weeks civil war poems describing the […]

In “Continuities”, Whitman seems to be challenging what is vs. what we perceive. Whitman suggests that people are often taken from the truth when evaluating the superficial. The phrase “what you see is what you get” comes to mind when considering this poem; Whitman, however disagrees with this as we see in the line “Appearance […]

For my post, I am going to explore both “Going Somewhere” and “Continuities” and continue a conversation we had about how both life and death can be transformed into something else, such as nature. Both poems seem to speak to the idea that life is always moving forward; “onward, onward” life is not a stagnant […]

At the end of the long day of Whitman’s life, after all the chants had been sung, after the Great Grey Poet immortalized himself as a prophetic icon in the American literary pantheon, our subject has left behind a trail of poems leading to the hope for poetry’s future- science. Wait, science, the supposed great […]

There is a lot of Whitmanian energy surrounding Lana Del Rey’s Tropico, and I thought I would continue the conversation about this short film here for this week. I picked this piece because of Jack Spicers “Notes on Whitman”. Spicer seems to take a cynical stance on Whitman, stating his world is too idealistic. Whitman speaks […]

Walt Whitman cannot say goodbye, so he says, “So long!” There is some irony in his opening promise that this in a conclusion. “To conclude,” the poet says, just before going on to say that this is an open-ended discussion of the future. He then does a quick sort of summary of “Leaves of Grass,” […]

In “So Long” Whitman enables one to sees “what comes after” him, or the future of the nation in its splendor, as it follows his own life; this poem paints the universe’s all-encompassing nature, with ideals such as “liberty,” “equality,” and a capacity to hold superb individuals (609-10). Meanwhile, these encounters prove “too much” for […]

Reading and interpreting Whitman’s When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle depicting an abstract artist’s work. So many natural objects are attributed agency that it drives me mad trying to pinpoint their interrelations; what do I make of these symbols? How do I flesh out the looming cloud, […]

For my Extending the Conversation piece in class today I will be looking at Suzanne Gardiner’s poem “Memorials” which can be found on page 69 in the Visiting Walt book. I picked this poem for several reasons but mostly because it presents an interesting twist on the elegiac themes from the poems we read for […]