Whitman’s poem expresses his joy in the nation and its buzzing activity: ‘this wild, bizarre, unpredictable, Hog-stomping, Baroque country of ours,’ as Tom Wolfe once put it.
It’s hard to choose a poem from Walt Whitman (1819–1892) for the Poem of the Day feature here in The New York Sun. In part that’s because so many of his best poems are too long to read in a morning article: the Whitman of a capacious spirit, writing deep, profoundly American, non-gooey stuff — “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” for example, or “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” — rather than the Whitman of narcissistic self-indulgence.
Still, for his birthday on May 31, it’s worth remembering that Whitman is a real American presence, his poetry not ruined by the many attempts to claim him for various (mostly leftist) political or social causes. Here at the Sun we’ve already run in past months Whitman’s “A Noiseless Patient Spider” and “The Wound-Dresser,” but even more than those poems, “I Hear America Singing” expresses his joy in the nation and its buzzing activity: “this wild, bizarre, unpredictable, Hog-stomping, Baroque country of ours,” as Tom Wolfe once put it. Whitman loved the multitudes in their individuality, as much as anyone short of God can, “Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else.”
By JOSEPH CURL
|
By JAMES BROOKE
|
Cancel anytime
By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
By DEAN KARAYANIS
|
