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Selected Poems
In his unconventional verse, Walt Whitman spoke in a powerful, sensual, oratorical, and inspiring voice. His most famous work, Leaves of Grass, was a long-term project that the poet compared to the building of a cathedral or the slow growth of a tree. During his lifetime, from 1819 to 1892, it went through nine editions. Today it is regarded as a landmark of American literature.
This volume contains 24 poems from Leaves of Grass, offering a generous sampling of Whitman's best and most representative verses. Featured works include "I Hear America Singing," "I Sing the Body Electric," "Song of the Open Road," "Out of Cradle Endlessly Rocking," "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," and "O Captain! My Captain!" — all reprinted from an authoritative text.
This volume contains 24 poems from Leaves of Grass, offering a generous sampling of Whitman's best and most representative verses. Featured works include "I Hear America Singing," "I Sing the Body Electric," "Song of the Open Road," "Out of Cradle Endlessly Rocking," "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," and "O Captain! My Captain!" — all reprinted from an authoritative text.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1892
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About the author
Walt Whitman
1,787 books5,406 followersWalter 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."
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."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 100 reviews
April 15, 2009
I have read as much I could!
I have read apostrophes - long, exhaustive lists of apostrophes!
I have felt for the common man
I have felt for the common woman
Yet I have found myself skimming, and rarely pausing.
O these poems are coherent and distinctive.
O they have their moments and doubtless somewhere amongst their long sentences and long stanzas there are jewels.
But I now think of Whitman's contemporaries : of Robert Browning with longing, of Arnold with respect, and allow that even Tennyson may have had a more concentrated power.
I have read apostrophes - long, exhaustive lists of apostrophes!
I have felt for the common man
I have felt for the common woman
Yet I have found myself skimming, and rarely pausing.
O these poems are coherent and distinctive.
O they have their moments and doubtless somewhere amongst their long sentences and long stanzas there are jewels.
But I now think of Whitman's contemporaries : of Robert Browning with longing, of Arnold with respect, and allow that even Tennyson may have had a more concentrated power.
December 16, 2022
چه جادویی تو این شعرهاست؟که هر کلمهشون هم نمکی روی زخمن و هم چسب زخمی رو زخم.
اگه ویتمن رو با سه کلمه توصیف کنم:
خالص،شجاع و روحیه.
دم انتشارات مروارید هم گرم بخاطر دوزبانه چاپ کردنشون و ترجمهی زیباشونt-t
اگه ویتمن رو با سه کلمه توصیف کنم:
خالص،شجاع و روحیه.
دم انتشارات مروارید هم گرم بخاطر دوزبانه چاپ کردنشون و ترجمهی زیباشونt-t
April 24, 2023
rip walt whitman you would have loved pride parades. and doctor who. and also maybe a natasha pulley novel.
April 29, 2019
Walt Whitman In The American Poets Project
When I learned that the American philosopher Richard Rorty's late work "Achieving Our Country" had praised Walt Whitman (1819 -- 1892) ,his patriotism, and his optimistic vision of America, I had to revisit Whitman. I had earlier been reading and thinking about Rorty.
I found this edition of Whitman's "Selected Poems" chosen and introduced by the noted literary scholar Harold Bloom which was published as an early volume of the American Poets Project series of the Library of America. The LOA has published a large volume of Whitman's poetry and prose as well as a new (April, 2019) book, published to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Whitman's birth, "Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America". The American Poets Project is valuable in its own right as it publishes a broad range of American poetry, much of it by poets less well-known than Whitman, in small, uniform editions so that Americans may learn more about their country's poetry.
The American Poets Project edition of Whitman includes Harold Bloom's introduction to the poet. Bloom has written extensively about Whitman and about many other American poets. More importantly, the book consists of a concise selection of Whitman's best work. Whitman is a poet that will bear a selective reading, especially for busy readers new to his writing or wanting a reminder of what he is about. There is more than enough in this volume for extensive reading and thinking about Whitman. The selections are drawn from Whitman's final "deathbed" 1892 edition of "Leaves of Grass" with the exception of the poem "The Sleepers" which is presented in its early 1855 version.
The volume consists of seven sections. It opens with a short selection of early fragments that Whitman worked into his masterwork, the "Song of Myself". This poem appears in full in its final version in the second section of the book. In itself, it will reward many readings and would be enough, if the poet hadn't written another word, to establish Whitman as the great American poet. The third section of the book includes, five lengthy poems, "The Sleepers", "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry", "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking", "I Ebb'd With the Ocean of Life" and the Elegy to Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd". "Brooklyn Ferry" and "Out of the Cradle" have long been my favorite Whitman poems.
The remaining four parts of the book consist of a selection from mostly shorter poems from "Leaves of Grass". Different readers might choose other or additional poems. Bloom includes a large selection of erotic, sexual poems together with some of Whitman's Civil War poetry, and some late, reflective and valedictory works. The poems I like include "The Wound Dresser", "There was a Child Went Forth" and "Good-Bye My Fancy!"
In Section 2 of "Song of Myself", Whitman makes a large promise to his reader:
"Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? Have you reckon'd the earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems.
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left.)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand,
nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self."
At times in reading this volume, I was almost persuaded that Whitman had fulfilled the promise he had made in this passage.
I found that I needed the time and more spent with Whitman. Whitman wrote for himself and for the brawling diverse multitude of America. In a divided, polarized America, Whitman's is a voice we need to recover.
Robin Friedman
When I learned that the American philosopher Richard Rorty's late work "Achieving Our Country" had praised Walt Whitman (1819 -- 1892) ,his patriotism, and his optimistic vision of America, I had to revisit Whitman. I had earlier been reading and thinking about Rorty.
I found this edition of Whitman's "Selected Poems" chosen and introduced by the noted literary scholar Harold Bloom which was published as an early volume of the American Poets Project series of the Library of America. The LOA has published a large volume of Whitman's poetry and prose as well as a new (April, 2019) book, published to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Whitman's birth, "Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America". The American Poets Project is valuable in its own right as it publishes a broad range of American poetry, much of it by poets less well-known than Whitman, in small, uniform editions so that Americans may learn more about their country's poetry.
The American Poets Project edition of Whitman includes Harold Bloom's introduction to the poet. Bloom has written extensively about Whitman and about many other American poets. More importantly, the book consists of a concise selection of Whitman's best work. Whitman is a poet that will bear a selective reading, especially for busy readers new to his writing or wanting a reminder of what he is about. There is more than enough in this volume for extensive reading and thinking about Whitman. The selections are drawn from Whitman's final "deathbed" 1892 edition of "Leaves of Grass" with the exception of the poem "The Sleepers" which is presented in its early 1855 version.
The volume consists of seven sections. It opens with a short selection of early fragments that Whitman worked into his masterwork, the "Song of Myself". This poem appears in full in its final version in the second section of the book. In itself, it will reward many readings and would be enough, if the poet hadn't written another word, to establish Whitman as the great American poet. The third section of the book includes, five lengthy poems, "The Sleepers", "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry", "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking", "I Ebb'd With the Ocean of Life" and the Elegy to Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd". "Brooklyn Ferry" and "Out of the Cradle" have long been my favorite Whitman poems.
The remaining four parts of the book consist of a selection from mostly shorter poems from "Leaves of Grass". Different readers might choose other or additional poems. Bloom includes a large selection of erotic, sexual poems together with some of Whitman's Civil War poetry, and some late, reflective and valedictory works. The poems I like include "The Wound Dresser", "There was a Child Went Forth" and "Good-Bye My Fancy!"
In Section 2 of "Song of Myself", Whitman makes a large promise to his reader:
"Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? Have you reckon'd the earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems.
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left.)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand,
nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self."
At times in reading this volume, I was almost persuaded that Whitman had fulfilled the promise he had made in this passage.
I found that I needed the time and more spent with Whitman. Whitman wrote for himself and for the brawling diverse multitude of America. In a divided, polarized America, Whitman's is a voice we need to recover.
Robin Friedman
March 9, 2023
ویتمن هم مثل تعدادی از شاعران تا رنگ خوشی را در زندگی ادبیش ببیند جان بهسر شد. تا زنده بود کتابهایش را سوزاندند و ممنوع کردند و شعرهایش را خلاف اخلاق تشخیص دادند.
در شعرهایش طبیعت و آزادی را بیشتر از همه چیز دیدم. خواندنش لذتبخش بود، شعرهای بلندش لذتبخشتر.
نمیخواهم بگویم برگردان اشعار به زبان دیگر غیرممکن است اما دستکم بسیار دشوار است که وزن و آهنگ زبان را به زبانی دیگر منتقل کرد.
مثلا:
Within me / is the longest day,
the sun wheels / in slanting rings,
it does not / set for months,
( / را خودم اضافه کردم که بدانم کجا قطع میکنم)
درازترین روزها در اندرون من است، خورشید چون چرخی مایل میگردد و ماهها غروب نمیکند،
در شعرهایش طبیعت و آزادی را بیشتر از همه چیز دیدم. خواندنش لذتبخش بود، شعرهای بلندش لذتبخشتر.
نمیخواهم بگویم برگردان اشعار به زبان دیگر غیرممکن است اما دستکم بسیار دشوار است که وزن و آهنگ زبان را به زبانی دیگر منتقل کرد.
مثلا:
Within me / is the longest day,
the sun wheels / in slanting rings,
it does not / set for months,
( / را خودم اضافه کردم که بدانم کجا قطع میکنم)
درازترین روزها در اندرون من است، خورشید چون چرخی مایل میگردد و ماهها غروب نمیکند،
October 2, 2024
Been ruminating lately on how incredible it is that for as long as humans have been around, we have been feeling.
Sometimes, feeling feelings can feel like such an individual experience and it's easy to think you're the only person that feels this way and/or has ever felt this way— that you are alone in the way that you feel.
That's why I like poetry— it reminds us that we're not. I read poetry from people of the past and think "I feel just as you felt, friend."
So with this already on my mind, I grew goosebumps reading "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry."
As if Walt himself was saying "I felt just as you feel, friend."
Anyways, drink every time I said "feel/felt."
Sometimes, feeling feelings can feel like such an individual experience and it's easy to think you're the only person that feels this way and/or has ever felt this way— that you are alone in the way that you feel.
That's why I like poetry— it reminds us that we're not. I read poetry from people of the past and think "I feel just as you felt, friend."
So with this already on my mind, I grew goosebumps reading "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry."
5
What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not,
I too lived, Brooklyn of ample hills was mine,
I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan island, and bathed in the waters around it,
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
In the day among crowds of people sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night or as I lay in my bed they came upon me,
I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution,
I too had receiv’d identity by my body,
That I was I knew was of my body, and what I should be I knew I should be of my body.
6
It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
The dark threw its patches down upon me also,
The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious,
My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?
[...]
7
Closer yet I approach you,
What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you—I laid in my stores in advance,
I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.
Who was to know what should come home to me?
Who knows but I am enjoying this?
Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?
As if Walt himself was saying "I felt just as you feel, friend."
Anyways, drink every time I said "feel/felt."
January 2, 2023
This is a miraculous collection, among the very best I've read, taking its place beside Yeats's Collected Poems and the Norton Shelley. By nearly any measure one could name—diction, rhyme, complexity of trope (a few of many: the tally, those long accountings of places, names, and people that compose a country; the select insertions of soul countered by self, Whitman’s recondite usage determining their variable meanings in context; Night/Mother/Death/Sea, that dizzying, cohesive metaphorical quartet that threatens to tear the poet asunder, or grant him deliverance (on which Bloom’s intro is particularly helpful); the answering, incantatory parentheticals, perhaps in the “true” voice of Walt’s evasive Real Me), cognitive ambition, aesthetic scope—Whitman must be considered among the most audacious and challenging of poets. And yet, the poems themselves roll and roar along, carried by a lusty directness that by turns elicits smiles, eye-waterings, or gasps of awe at what is dared. I'm so glad I took advantage of LOA's recent sale to add this to my collection. I will no doubt turn to it again and again to see what new secrets Walt's muse might yield up next. Were it only composed of the first three sections (early fragments of "Song of Myself," a later complete version of same, and the five longer poems, of which “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” is perhaps my favorite of the entire book), this would be well worth the plaudit "inexhaustible." But then I find, among the later sections, such deeply felt gems as the Civil War lamentation "The Wound-Dresser" and the following "song of myself" in a rather dissonant key that lands hard and fast in these early days of my own forty-first year, and reads in part:
IN paths untrodden,
In the growth by margins of pond-waters,
Escaped from the life that exhibits itself,
From all the standards hitherto publish'd—from the
pleasures, profits, conformities,
Which too long I was offering to feed my Soul;
Clear to me, now, standards not yet publish'd—clear
to me that my Soul,
That the Soul of the man I speak for, feeds, rejoices
in comrades;
Here, by myself, away from the clank of the world,
Tallying and talk'd to here by tongues aromatic,
No longer abash'd—for in this secluded spot I can
respond as I would not dare elsewhere,
Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself,
yet contains all the rest,[…]
* * *
I can think of no better book to change the minds of those who profess an allergy to poetry. Read it before the oh-so-concerned book banners of state*, also lurking on school boards and in suburban neighborhoods near you, remove it from the hands of the young and impressionable! And read it especially if you fall among that fortunate cohort, for whose benefit this pitiful and destructive work is supposedly being done!
(*Just kidding—these people wouldn’t go near a set of one-hundred-fifty-year-old poems, and wouldn’t know what to do with them should their eyes inadvertently scan the lines. But I wouldn’t care to try their small, acquisitive, annihilating impulses.)
IN paths untrodden,
In the growth by margins of pond-waters,
Escaped from the life that exhibits itself,
From all the standards hitherto publish'd—from the
pleasures, profits, conformities,
Which too long I was offering to feed my Soul;
Clear to me, now, standards not yet publish'd—clear
to me that my Soul,
That the Soul of the man I speak for, feeds, rejoices
in comrades;
Here, by myself, away from the clank of the world,
Tallying and talk'd to here by tongues aromatic,
No longer abash'd—for in this secluded spot I can
respond as I would not dare elsewhere,
Strong upon me the life that does not exhibit itself,
yet contains all the rest,[…]
* * *
I can think of no better book to change the minds of those who profess an allergy to poetry. Read it before the oh-so-concerned book banners of state*, also lurking on school boards and in suburban neighborhoods near you, remove it from the hands of the young and impressionable! And read it especially if you fall among that fortunate cohort, for whose benefit this pitiful and destructive work is supposedly being done!
(*Just kidding—these people wouldn’t go near a set of one-hundred-fifty-year-old poems, and wouldn’t know what to do with them should their eyes inadvertently scan the lines. But I wouldn’t care to try their small, acquisitive, annihilating impulses.)
September 24, 2012
والت ویتمن برای شعر آمریکا چیزی در حد نیما برای شعر فارسی است و همراه ادگار آلن پو از بانیان شعر نو و آزاد آمریکا هستند که شاعرانی مانند گینزبرگ و سن ژون پرس و بسیاری دیگر را تحت تاثیر قرار داده اند
جدای ماجراجویی ویتمن برای عبور از خط قرمزهای جامعه و فضای شعری بسته دوران خود نگاه انسانی او نیز بزرگ و ستایش برانگیز است وقتی می بینی سال ها قبل شاعری به نمایندگی از مردم آمریکا در شعرش به شهرها و کوه ها و دشت های جهان سفر می کند و زندگی و اقوام را می ستاید و وقتی در تهران مهمان ما می شود
سلام به دنیا
....
جماعت رنگارنگ را در بازارهای مکاره خیوه و هرات می بینم
تهران را می بینم
....
و یا وقتی می گوید
ای دوست این کتاب نیست
انسانی است که بر او دست میزنی
...
واقعا دست ما را می فشارد. ترجمه سال 1379 این کتاب که در ایران تجدید چاپ نشد و کمیاب می باشد و از دکتر سیروس پرهام است و ترجمه خوب و دقیقی است و حدود 30 شعر کوتاه و بلند ویتمن را در بر دارد
-------------
در آخر شعری از ازرا پاند را ترجمه کرده ام که نشان می دهد این پیرمرد مکار و غریب نیز با وجود انتقاد و بد و بیراهی که به ویتمن می داده اما او هم تحت تاثیر ویتمن است
عهد
با تو عهد میبندم ، والت ویتمن -
به قدر کافی از تو بیزار بودهام
چون فرزندی رشید پیش تو میآیم
که پدری کله خر داشته است
حالا آن قدر بزرگ شدهام که رفاقت کنم
تو بودی که چوب تازه را کندی
حالا زمانِ تراش است
ما یک شیره و یک ریشه داریم
بگذار میان ما داد و ستد باشد
جدای ماجراجویی ویتمن برای عبور از خط قرمزهای جامعه و فضای شعری بسته دوران خود نگاه انسانی او نیز بزرگ و ستایش برانگیز است وقتی می بینی سال ها قبل شاعری به نمایندگی از مردم آمریکا در شعرش به شهرها و کوه ها و دشت های جهان سفر می کند و زندگی و اقوام را می ستاید و وقتی در تهران مهمان ما می شود
سلام به دنیا
....
جماعت رنگارنگ را در بازارهای مکاره خیوه و هرات می بینم
تهران را می بینم
....
و یا وقتی می گوید
ای دوست این کتاب نیست
انسانی است که بر او دست میزنی
...
واقعا دست ما را می فشارد. ترجمه سال 1379 این کتاب که در ایران تجدید چاپ نشد و کمیاب می باشد و از دکتر سیروس پرهام است و ترجمه خوب و دقیقی است و حدود 30 شعر کوتاه و بلند ویتمن را در بر دارد
-------------
در آخر شعری از ازرا پاند را ترجمه کرده ام که نشان می دهد این پیرمرد مکار و غریب نیز با وجود انتقاد و بد و بیراهی که به ویتمن می داده اما او هم تحت تاثیر ویتمن است
عهد
با تو عهد میبندم ، والت ویتمن -
به قدر کافی از تو بیزار بودهام
چون فرزندی رشید پیش تو میآیم
که پدری کله خر داشته است
حالا آن قدر بزرگ شدهام که رفاقت کنم
تو بودی که چوب تازه را کندی
حالا زمانِ تراش است
ما یک شیره و یک ریشه داریم
بگذار میان ما داد و ستد باشد
April 14, 2024
The few that moved me really moved me.
August 12, 2017
While some writers are skilled at capturing a moment, others write across the ages and feel as relevant today as ever. That was my experience reading Walt Whitman. A feminist existentialist poet with no filters who wrote from the deepest of himself to show reflections on faith, morality, spirituality, sexuality, war, life, cities, love, joy, and a whole slew of topics in a way that I had to keep checking his bio.
That the words resonate so much are amazing enough... that his writing and my reading are separated by over a century shows the power words have. The back cover has a text that says, "A revelatory selection of America's greatest poet by the foremost literary critic of our time." That sounds as puff laden as it gets but I urge you to look past it and enter a poetry collection that is as imaginative as it is daring.
Quite often his poems feels like streams of thought he captured and refined until he was ready to share them. They can be ethereal or immediate and his writings on sexuality, equality, and war are are particularly impactful.
The shortest version I can recommend this is by saying that I got this collection from my local library and will be purchasing my own copy. As timeless as it is human, this is a worthy addition to any collection and although a bit more elevated, a great collection to get someone who is getting into poetry.
That the words resonate so much are amazing enough... that his writing and my reading are separated by over a century shows the power words have. The back cover has a text that says, "A revelatory selection of America's greatest poet by the foremost literary critic of our time." That sounds as puff laden as it gets but I urge you to look past it and enter a poetry collection that is as imaginative as it is daring.
Quite often his poems feels like streams of thought he captured and refined until he was ready to share them. They can be ethereal or immediate and his writings on sexuality, equality, and war are are particularly impactful.
The shortest version I can recommend this is by saying that I got this collection from my local library and will be purchasing my own copy. As timeless as it is human, this is a worthy addition to any collection and although a bit more elevated, a great collection to get someone who is getting into poetry.
August 4, 2021
“Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?/ Well I have...for the April rain has, and the mica on the side of a rock has.”
September 13, 2024
Between 3.5 and 4. One of the few times I’ve felt remotely patriotic
May 24, 2017
Minä ihan tosissani yritin. Odotin pitäväni tästä, koska lyhyitä (pääasiassa englanninkielisiä) Whitman-sitaatteja on tullut vastaan paljon, ja niiden viehättävyyden takia tähänkin kirjaan tartuin.
Valitettavasti ainakaan suomeksi nämä "demokraattisen Amerikan suuren kansallisrunoilijan" runot eivät ihan uponneet. Yli 90-sivuinen Laulu itsestäni takelteli jo pahasti, toinen osa (Adamin lapset) lähinnä ällötti, eikä sen pohjakosketuksen jälkeen lopuilla runoilla enää paljon pelastettu.
Mielenkiintoista nähdä, millaisia ajatuksia yöpöydällä odottava Leaves of Grass herättää tämän jälkeen. Ainakin tuo Song of Myselfin alku tuntui kulkevan englanniksi paremmin.
Valitettavasti ainakaan suomeksi nämä "demokraattisen Amerikan suuren kansallisrunoilijan" runot eivät ihan uponneet. Yli 90-sivuinen Laulu itsestäni takelteli jo pahasti, toinen osa (Adamin lapset) lähinnä ällötti, eikä sen pohjakosketuksen jälkeen lopuilla runoilla enää paljon pelastettu.
Mielenkiintoista nähdä, millaisia ajatuksia yöpöydällä odottava Leaves of Grass herättää tämän jälkeen. Ainakin tuo Song of Myselfin alku tuntui kulkevan englanniksi paremmin.
August 27, 2019
i don’t like walt whitman
small sample size
small sample size
May 11, 2021
I love him
September 15, 2021
I can appreciate the poetry, but I found it repetitious and monotonous.
June 17, 2022
not as good as i expected
April 2, 2024
I’ve found that when reading good poetry the experience is such:
In this moment, I am not reading Walt Whitman,
I am Walt Whitman
In this moment, I am not reading Walt Whitman,
I am Walt Whitman
January 19, 2022
This selection of Whitman's poetry is divided into seven parts and includes the complete text of "Song of Myself"...
From I...
From II...
From III...
From IV...
From V...
From VI...
From VII...
From I...
I am your voice - It was tied in you - In me it begins to talk.
I celebrate myself to celebrate every man and woman alive;
I loosen the tongue that was tied in them,
It begins to talk out of my mouth.
I celebrate myself to celebrate you:
I say the same word for every man and woman alive.
And I say that the soul is not greater than the body,
And I say that the body is not greater than the soul.- Early Notebook Fragments of "Song of Myself", pg. 3
From II...
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.- Song of Myself, 1, pg. 11
From III...
As I ebb’d with the ocean of life,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk’d where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok,
Where they rustle up hoarse and sibilant,
Where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways,
I musing late in the autumn day, gazing off southward,
Held by this electric self out of the pride of which I utter poems,
Was seiz’d by the spirit that trails in the lines underfoot,
The rim, the sediment that stands for all the water and all the land of the globe.
Fascinated, my eyes reverting from the south, dropt, to follow those slender windrows,
Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten,
Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide,
Miles walking, the sound of breaking waves the other side of me,
Paumanok there and then as I thought the old thought of likenesses,
These you presented to me you fish-shaped island,
As I wended the shores I know,
As I walk’d with that electric self seeking types.- As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life, 1, pg. 126-127
From IV...
Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not-to-day is to justify me the answer what I am for,
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known,
Arouse! for you must justify me.
I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.
I am a man who, sauntering along without fully stopped, turns a casual look upon you and then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you.- Poets to Come, pg. 145
From V...
City of orgies, walks and joys,
City whom that I have lived and sun in your midst will one day make you illustrious,
Not the pageant of you, not your shifting tableaus, your spectacles, repay me,
Not the interminable rows of your houses, nor the ships at the wharves,
Nor the processions in the streets, nor the bright windows with goods in them,
Nor to converse with learn'd persons, or bear my share in the soiree or feast;
Not those, but as I pass O Manhattan, your frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me love,
Offering response to my own - these repay me,
Lovers, continual lovers, only repay me.- City of Orgies, pg. 178
From VI...
On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.
Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.
From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.
Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.
Then dearest child mournest thou only for Jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?
Something there is,
(With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.- On the Beach at Night, pg. 183-184
From VII...
When the full-grown poet came,
Out spake pleased Nature (the round impassive globe, with all
its shows of day and night,) saying, He is mine;
But out spake too the Soul of man, proud, jealous and unrec-
onciled, Nay, he is mine alone;
—Then the full-grown poet stood between the two, and took
each by the hand;
And to-day and ever so stands, as blender, uniter, tightly hold-
ing hands,
Which he will never release until he reconciles the two,
And wholly and joyously blends them.- When the Full-Grown Poet Came, pg. 204-205
February 18, 2016
My only complaint is that there weren't more poems in this book.
January 16, 2021
I keep trying to find poems that don't bore me or confuse me or both
January 23, 2023
Some enjoyable poems but Whitman just isn’t my cup of tea.
October 25, 2024
this is why everyone tells me to just stick to modern classics 😭😭
May 26, 2018
This took me around six months to read, but it was worth it. No one told me how queer and horny and just altogether EXTRA Whitman was, which totally would've made me get to him sooner.
How extra was Whitman?
The first (self-published) edition of Leaves of Grass, featuring the aptly named "Song of Myself" didn't have an author on the front, only this:
Yes, that is an engraving of Whitman being the cool kid hanging out under the bleachers and whose not-at-all-studied insouciance was just incidentally captured... for three seconds by daguerrotype.
It must say something, though I'm sure what, that of the two most important American poets, we have on one side the modest, little-known, homebody, intellectual Emily who wrote of concise careful poems about the soul and the beyond, and on the other we have the most relentlessly self-promoting, horny, itinerant Walt who writes inflated free verse about the fact of the body (blood and guts and tears and FLUIDS).
Maybe something about our Puritan roots and religious fervor and sex-prudery/obsession and gender performance, etc. Some doctorate student should get on that.
I will note, however, that they both share an enthusiasm for the exclamation mark that has sadly fallen out of style thanks to the efforts of English teachers and style guides. Do it patriotically! Bring back the exclamation mark!
How extra was Whitman?
The first (self-published) edition of Leaves of Grass, featuring the aptly named "Song of Myself" didn't have an author on the front, only this:
Yes, that is an engraving of Whitman being the cool kid hanging out under the bleachers and whose not-at-all-studied insouciance was just incidentally captured... for three seconds by daguerrotype.
It must say something, though I'm sure what, that of the two most important American poets, we have on one side the modest, little-known, homebody, intellectual Emily who wrote of concise careful poems about the soul and the beyond, and on the other we have the most relentlessly self-promoting, horny, itinerant Walt who writes inflated free verse about the fact of the body (blood and guts and tears and FLUIDS).
Maybe something about our Puritan roots and religious fervor and sex-prudery/obsession and gender performance, etc. Some doctorate student should get on that.
I will note, however, that they both share an enthusiasm for the exclamation mark that has sadly fallen out of style thanks to the efforts of English teachers and style guides. Do it patriotically! Bring back the exclamation mark!
Want to read
March 30, 2024i have been reunited with the same edition that i picked up in the canton library around six years ago :-) i met with it was when i wanted to be smarter but did not know where to start, and asked my dad to give me some things to read, and this edition fell into my lap. the memories flooded back to me so quickly when i saw harold bloom's face on the dust jacket. it was a cool moment... i guess now i am posting it for amazon to see. hi amazon. i should probably stop uploading information about myself online, but it is easier to type than it is to write, and it is nice to have all of my things in one neat interface.
technical notes: the photo uploaded for this edition is not the same because the americans poet project updated the publishing with a different cover but did not change the isbn, so there is not a picture of the copy i am reading in the goodreads database. the copy i am reading is hardcover with a green, white, and orange cover. it is very pretty, unlike the photo that appears under this selected edition. no offense!
technical notes: the photo uploaded for this edition is not the same because the americans poet project updated the publishing with a different cover but did not change the isbn, so there is not a picture of the copy i am reading in the goodreads database. the copy i am reading is hardcover with a green, white, and orange cover. it is very pretty, unlike the photo that appears under this selected edition. no offense!
September 3, 2024
This one really just didn't capture my interest.
I don't know if it's just me and my life right now (not a lot of time to sit down and process poetry), the really repetitive sections, or the older language, but I just couldn't click into it. I found myself skimming more than reading in most places.
I did like some aspects of it. This kind of idea carried throughout song of myself (and some of the other poems) about finding yourself in everyone and everything was interesting. It felt kind of metatative, like being mindful and connecting with everyone around you empathetically while seeing snippets of their experiences like a kaleidoscope.
Some favorite lines:
"Nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is"
"I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself."
"I bequeath myself to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles"
"Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself."
I don't know if it's just me and my life right now (not a lot of time to sit down and process poetry), the really repetitive sections, or the older language, but I just couldn't click into it. I found myself skimming more than reading in most places.
I did like some aspects of it. This kind of idea carried throughout song of myself (and some of the other poems) about finding yourself in everyone and everything was interesting. It felt kind of metatative, like being mindful and connecting with everyone around you empathetically while seeing snippets of their experiences like a kaleidoscope.
Some favorite lines:
"Nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is"
"I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself."
"I bequeath myself to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles"
"Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself."
September 15, 2024
Selected Poems by Walt Whitman: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Content Warnings: some poems are overtly sexual in nature, descriptions of unclothed men, bisexual undertones
Walt Whitman’s poems are best enjoyed read aloud, because each of the poems are written in streams of consciousness it’s hard to focus on reading them silently. Walt can evoke all ranges of emotion, but is a master at evoking feelings of sadness and despair in his poems about the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Because Walt wrote about the everyday life of the American people in 1850-1891, these poems are screenshots of what life was like back them. While I did not enjoy all the poems this style of writing stays with you. Some of my favorite poems include Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, I hear America Singing, Beat! Beat! Drums!, Come Up From The Fields Father, When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom’d, and O Captain! My Captain!
Content Warnings: some poems are overtly sexual in nature, descriptions of unclothed men, bisexual undertones
Walt Whitman’s poems are best enjoyed read aloud, because each of the poems are written in streams of consciousness it’s hard to focus on reading them silently. Walt can evoke all ranges of emotion, but is a master at evoking feelings of sadness and despair in his poems about the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Because Walt wrote about the everyday life of the American people in 1850-1891, these poems are screenshots of what life was like back them. While I did not enjoy all the poems this style of writing stays with you. Some of my favorite poems include Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, I hear America Singing, Beat! Beat! Drums!, Come Up From The Fields Father, When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom’d, and O Captain! My Captain!
July 30, 2024
4 thoughts on this!
1)He is a surprisingly brilliant poet of grief. I had never heard him described this way but his poems about the loss of people he knew & loved are incredibly humane, deeply felt, & have that combined universality & specificity of true grief that expresses it perfectly
2)He is VERY gay (or bi? unsure) - hilariously so. Lots of detailed risque stuff that I skimmed over
3)Just extraordinary pastoral poems - his better poems of nature have a far-flung scope and yet again ALSO a specificity that makes them instantly memorable
4)He's so joyous - especially in his long nature poems. He LOVES humanity & he LOVES nature & he LOVES America, & unabashedly articulates these intense loves in rich songs of joy. I would read (a selection) of these poems to cheer myself up anyday, & am mentally marking him as a comfort poet
1)He is a surprisingly brilliant poet of grief. I had never heard him described this way but his poems about the loss of people he knew & loved are incredibly humane, deeply felt, & have that combined universality & specificity of true grief that expresses it perfectly
2)He is VERY gay (or bi? unsure) - hilariously so. Lots of detailed risque stuff that I skimmed over
3)Just extraordinary pastoral poems - his better poems of nature have a far-flung scope and yet again ALSO a specificity that makes them instantly memorable
4)He's so joyous - especially in his long nature poems. He LOVES humanity & he LOVES nature & he LOVES America, & unabashedly articulates these intense loves in rich songs of joy. I would read (a selection) of these poems to cheer myself up anyday, & am mentally marking him as a comfort poet
January 27, 2025
Walt Whitman: Selected Poems
★★★★★
reading whitman feels like walking barefoot through untamed fields, the grass wet with morning dew. his words are alive, sprawling, unapologetic, and they hold a mirror to humanity in all its rawness and beauty.
there’s a rhythm to his poems that isn’t bound by rules - his lines breathe, expand, contract, and leave you feeling like you’ve touched the edge of something eternal. whitman captures the ordinary and the divine in the same breath, reminding us that the two are inseparable.
every poem is a celebration - of nature, the self, and the connection between all things. his work doesn’t just speak to you; it calls you to live, to observe, to feel.
this isn’t just poetry - it’s life, distilled.
★★★★★
reading whitman feels like walking barefoot through untamed fields, the grass wet with morning dew. his words are alive, sprawling, unapologetic, and they hold a mirror to humanity in all its rawness and beauty.
there’s a rhythm to his poems that isn’t bound by rules - his lines breathe, expand, contract, and leave you feeling like you’ve touched the edge of something eternal. whitman captures the ordinary and the divine in the same breath, reminding us that the two are inseparable.
every poem is a celebration - of nature, the self, and the connection between all things. his work doesn’t just speak to you; it calls you to live, to observe, to feel.
this isn’t just poetry - it’s life, distilled.
May 15, 2021
خرامان و سبک دل راه گشاده را در پیش میگیرم
آزاد و تندرستم و جهان در برابر من است ،
جاده ی قهوه ای رنگ پیش پای من است و هرجا که بخواهم می رود .
از این پس در طلب نیکبختی نخواهم بود، من خود نیکبختیام،
از این پس دیگر زاری نخواهم کرد، درنگ نخواهم کرد و نیازی نخواهم داشت،
من که به شکایت های درون سراها و کتابخانهها و انتقادهای شکوهآمیز پشت پا زدم،
نیرومند و خوشنود راه گشاده را در مینوردم.
زمین مرا بس است،
اختران را نزدیکتر نمیخواهم،
دانم که جای شایستهشان همانجاست که هستند،
دانم که برای آنان که وابسته به آنهایند بسندهاند
آزاد و تندرستم و جهان در برابر من است ،
جاده ی قهوه ای رنگ پیش پای من است و هرجا که بخواهم می رود .
از این پس در طلب نیکبختی نخواهم بود، من خود نیکبختیام،
از این پس دیگر زاری نخواهم کرد، درنگ نخواهم کرد و نیازی نخواهم داشت،
من که به شکایت های درون سراها و کتابخانهها و انتقادهای شکوهآمیز پشت پا زدم،
نیرومند و خوشنود راه گشاده را در مینوردم.
زمین مرا بس است،
اختران را نزدیکتر نمیخواهم،
دانم که جای شایستهشان همانجاست که هستند،
دانم که برای آنان که وابسته به آنهایند بسندهاند
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