The Open Road: Walt Whitman on Death & Dying

by Walt Whitman, Joe Vest (Editor)

How shall we answer when Death calls our name? Having lived our lives avoiding thoughts of death, how do we respond to that final reality?
Walt Whitman, America's greatest poet, gave deep thought to such questions. This volume of selected Whitman poetry speaks to an inner wisdom that is only strengthened as death draws near. Comforting and intimate, Whitman's words are collected here to help ease the journey that we all will take. An Allen Ginsberg essay addresses Walt Whitman's heroic contribution to the heart and soul of American thought.

Twenty duotone photographs that reflect the movement and the mystery of life illustrate Whitman's poems. Some of this century's most brilliant photographers are represented here, including W. Eugene Smith, Ernst Haas, Linda Conner, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Frederick Sommer, Aaron Siskind, William Garnett, Ian Berry, Minor White, John Sexton, and Wynn Bullock. Their black and white imagery captures the stark contrasts, the gentle graying, and the paradox that is our life and death. Paul Vest edited this volume of Whitman's poetry, The Open Walt Whitman on Death & Dying, which was published in 1996. Joe Vest (Paul Joe Vest) died of AIDS in Boulder, Colorado at the age of 49 on April 20, 1994 before the book was published. The preface was written by Jan Vest and the introduction by Debra Floyd and Alvaro Cardona-Hine.

Hardcover

First published May 1, 1996

About the author

Walter Whitman Jr. was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature. Whitman incorporated both transcendentalism and realism in his writings and is often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in his time, particularly his 1855 poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described by some as obscene for its overt sensuality.
Whitman was born in Huntington on Long Island, and lived in Brooklyn as a child and through much of his career. At the age of 11, he left formal schooling to go to work. He worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, was financed with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt to reach out to the common person with an American epic. Whitman continued expanding and revising Leaves of Grass until his death in 1892.
During the American Civil War, he went to Washington, D.C., and worked in hospitals caring for the wounded. His poetry often focused on both loss and healing. On the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, whom Whitman greatly admired, he authored two poems, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", and gave a series of lectures on Lincoln. After suffering a stroke towards the end of his life, Whitman moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. When he died at the age of 72, his funeral was a public event.
Whitman's influence on poetry remains strong. Art historian Mary Berenson wrote, "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him." Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America."

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short volume, composed of 21 excerpts of Whitman poems from "Leaves of Grass" and other publications, with each followed by a photograph. The poetic selections are an example of why Whitman is often termed the "father of free verse." The black and white photographs do not represent the mood or character or "message" of the poetic selections, rather each photograph seems intended to provide inter-spaced visual relief.

How shall we answer when Death calls our name? Having lived our lives avoiding thoughts of death, how do we respond to that final reality? "Walt Whitman, America's greatest poet, gave deep thought to such questions. This volume of selected Whitman poetry speaks to an inner wisdom that is only strengthened as death draws near. Comforting and intimate, Whitman's words are collected here to help ease the journey that we all will take."

The title page states that this volume is "Edited by Joe Vest" however that is not the case.
Vest, before his death, probably chose the selections from Whitman, so it might reasonably be stated "Selections chosen by Joe Vest." More than that is incorrect.

Except for the two very short Prefaces by Joe's sister and brother, an Introduction by Joe's friend Debra Floyd, and a one-page essay on 'Walt Whitman and Death' by Alvaro Cardona-Hine, the book concludes nicely with two essays -- the "Poetic Vision" by Jim Hughes and "Taking a Walk through Leaves of Grass" by Allen Ginsberg -- the two constituting a rather weak ending for this volume published in 1996.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The work of Vest and notes by the other contributors make this Leaves of Grass digest a wonder. You get a better sense of Whitman, and his specific impact on the community during those waking years (then his continued readership after), than you would from reading his poetry alone, and this is what compels The Open Road as an earnest and liberating one.

Thoughtfully presented, with all Whitman’s welcome and merry and — oh, delicious (his word, not mine) — though he be dead, dead, dead — and we be dying, dying, dying.

[MKF · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would of given this book five stars but I really did not get the point of the photographs. They had nothing to do with the poems at all and just felt as if they were there to fill up space between each poem.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

he makes death cool...