Whitman's Men: Walt Whitman's Calamus Poems celebrated by contemporary photographers

by David Groff (Introduction), Frank Yamrus, Richard Berman

This unprecedented volume of Walt Whitman's "Calamus" poems unites the works of seven contemporary young photographers with Whitman's poems, creating an engaging conversation that echoes the desires and ambitions of American men. This version of "Calamus," taken from the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, shows us the poems at their purest and most spontaneous - an expression of man's desire for his fellow man.
Themes that are integral to the "Calamus" poems - the search for self-awareness, for love and companionship; loneliness; and death - are reflected in the photographs, which evoke the timelessness of Whitman's writings and add an extra dimension of life to his ageless lines.
The featured photographers whose works pay tribute to this great American bard are Mark Beard, John Dugdale, Robert Flynt, Bill Jacobson, Russell Maynor, Steve Morrison, and Frank Yamrus.

Genres: Poetry, Art

80 pages, Hardcover

First published May 15, 1996

About the author

David Groff is an American poet, writer, and independent editor.

Groff graduated from the University of Iowa, with an MFA, and MA. He has taught at University of Iowa, Rutgers University, and NYU, and at William Paterson University.

For the last eleven years, he has worked with literary and popular novelists, memoirists, journalists, and scientists whose books have been published by Atria, Bantam, HarperCollins, Hyperion, Little Brown, Miramax, Putnam, St. Martin's, Wiley, and other publishers. For twelve years he was an editor at Crown Publishing.

Groff's work was published in American Poetry Review, Bloom, Chicago Review, Christopher Street, Confrontation, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, Men on Men 2, Men on Men 2000, Missouri Review, New York, North American Review, Northwest Review, Out, Poetry, Poetry Daily, Poetry Northwest, Poz, Prairie Schooner, QW, Self, 7 Days, 7 Carmine, and Wigwag.

Groff was awarded the Louise Bogan Award by the Lambda Literary Foundation in 2012 for his work, Clay.

He is currently an editor under the agency of Rob Weisbach Creative Management.

Reviews

[Adriana Scarpin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Estou fazendo um curso na USP sobre poesia homoerótica masculina brasileira, nessas primeiras aulas estamos revisitando os clássicos mundiais sobre o assunto e hoje tivemos aula sobre Walt Whitman e seu Calamus, por isso resolvi ler os 45 poemas dele depois da aula nessa edição supimpa que mistura fotógrafos queer dos anos 90 (em que alguns estão mais do que sob a sombra da AIDS e sim convivendo com a mesma) e a mais influente poética homoerótica do século XIX que perpassaria todo o homoerotismo do modernismo do próximo século.
Uma belíssima edição que deveria ser reeditada.