Essential Whitman

by Galway Kinnell (Editor)

Briefly discusses the history of Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and gathers a selection of poems about identity, childhood, growth, war, grief, and the wonder of life

Genres: Poetry, Fiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Kinnell studied at Princeton University, graduating in 1948. He later obtained a Master's degree from the University of Rochester.

As a young man, Kinnell served in the US Navy and traveled extensively in Europe and the Middle East. His first volume of poetry, What a Kingdom It Was, was published in 1960.

Kinnell became very involved in the U.S. civil rights movement upon his return, joining CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) as a field worker and participating in a number of marches and other civil actions.

Kinnell was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for Selected Poems (1980), a MacArthur Fellowship, a Rockefeller Grant, the 1974 Shelley Prize of the Poetry Society of America, and the 1975 Medal of Merit from National Institute of Arts and Letters. He served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2001 to 2007.

Reviews

[Chrystal · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked Whitman when I first read his poems about 25 yrs ago. Either I have changed much since then, or Galway Kinnell has chosen the absolutely worst poems that Whitman had to offer. This compendium was SO boring and annoying! My goodness, how many poems do we need to read about being naked in the water, or being naked in the grass? Wait a minute, now that I think about it, that is pretty much all Whitman wrote about, and it seems like every line starts with "O...!" as in:

O comrade lustrous...
O mortal soul...
O liquid, and free...
O wild and loose...
O how shall I warble...
O sun!
O grass of graves!
O stars of heaven!
O night!
O perpetual transfers...
O I will yet sing...
O madly the sea...

And every line ends with an exclamation! This doesn't bother me as much as the O's! But still!

Sing on!
Loud! Loud!
O land!
Here I am! Here!
O darkness!
O in vain!
How the flukes splash!
O wondrous singer!

O please stop! (this from me, not Walt).

[Elan Garfias · Rating 5 out of 5]

The American poet par excellence, every American should at least be familiar with some of his work to appreciate his impact on the course of American letters. Whether you estimate this impact for the better or the worse (I'm personally inclined to say for the worse), it's absolutely essential reading. While most of the smaller works in this volume are pretty skippable, Song of Myself certainly stands out as one of the more interesting literary products of the time. Even in this one, large swathes of text could still be omitted, and yet the poem as a whole positively demands to be read. It radiate with life and rhythm, the strapping birthing of the new poetics of the new country. It's basically a narrator walking around and taking in the quite ordinary sights of town and country, but on the page they become anything but ordinary. Whitman marvels at the clanging of workshops, the bustle of a downtown street, and simple nobility of normal people, and the quiet enlightenment of animals. There are neither great deeds nor any remarkable personages, as this poem wants for neither. Through the author's eyes everything becomes great and remarkable, and as the title suggests, so does he. He marvels at his body and mind, at once arrogant and humble. He casts about everywhere with sympathy and perception, invoking the epic in everything and everyone. How amazing it must be to exist on this level for just a few minutes, perfectly present and conscious. There is life in everything always willing to more life and more beauty and more motion, and Whitman celebrates the rampant sexuality latent in the world. Though it scandalized publishers at the time, the more sexual passages were surprisingly rare, and hardly lewd. Rather, they form merely another voice in the chorus of celebration. Song of Myself, while prolix at times, drips with quotable lines, visceral and sonorous and explosive; reading many of them I had the distinct sense of them refusing to stay on the page and insisting on existing in the world. For those familiar with Transcendentalism, the poem makes for a beautiful and joyous transliteration of an Emerson essay infused with rabid testosterone and a sense of humor. His audience is everyone, and the setting of this work is everywhere. While the volume is slim, Song of Myself bears rereading and reinterpreting, and is sure to yield new fruits each time.

[Jennifer Cunningham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first experience with Walt Whitman other than a few referenced excerpts through classes I have taken in the past. I felt this was a good introduction to his work. It reveals Whitman as a master observer of life and the world around him as well as someone capable of deep self-reflection. He reinvented poetry with his style of free verse, making it more tangible with everyday language and holistic connection to other humans and nature. He was eloquent and thorough with description and imagination, bringing together people of all classes and corners. The poems almost create stories at times, especially when telling of real world events such as war and the working class. I enjoyed this and would recommend his work as a great starting point in American poetry.

[Liberty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walt is the loml

[Tracie Sampson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not a fan of Whitman I must admit.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can't wait to see what ole Galway picked!