April 19 - From Song of Myself

So in looking at the news and various anniversaries coming up, I noticed that late April is kind of a hot spot for tragedies, disasters, mass murders and so on. I'm not going to write about that. I'm going to start with Mae West and end up with a 19th century firefighter.

On April 19th, 1927, Mae West (she of King Kong and Coke bottle fame) was sentenced to 10 days in jail for writing and starring in the play Sex. This was odd since the play had premiered the previous year and had already been staged 375 times. It was deemed "obscene."

This made me think of another book considered far too sexy for the common man to handle, Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, one of the greatest works in the English language.

There was a lot of controversy following the first print of the book, which contained only 12 of what would eventually become over 400 poems. (Whitman revised and added new material to the book from its first printing in 1855 until shortly before his death in 1892.)

Now, of course, with a work as famous as Leaves of Grass, there is a vast amount of available info that I will not include here. I will say that even from the beginning, many critics found the work far too sexual/erotic in nature. First, Whitman's boss at the Department of the Interior read the book and immediately fired him.

Next, critic Rufus Wilmot Griswold called the book a "stupid mass of filth." He even made one of the first suggestions that Whitman may engage in, and he wrote this in Latin in his review, "that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians."

In one of the best reactions to a bad review and attempted public shaming, Whitman included the review in its entirety in later editions of the the book. Of course, other critics compared the work to Shakespeare and Dante Alighieri, and rightfully so.

In the first edition, no author was credited. There was only this steel engraving of Whitman (he was 37 at the time). Why? Because fuckin' Walt Whitman, that's why!

Oh, and for the record, Whitman basically created American poetry as a style truly apart from British lit. Without this gay or bisexual American (unconfirmed which, but does it matter?), we would have lost an incalculable amount of...well, everything.

From the 1883 edition. He is never not awesome. The writing says,
Lo, where arise three peerless stars,
To be thy natal stars, my country,
Ensemble, Evolution, Freedom,
Set in the sky of Law.

There's soooo much more to say, but I gotta get to rockin'. So since I'm about to hit the road, here's one of my favorite Whitman poems. Oh, and Leaves of Grass can be downloaded for free on your smartphone. Also, since this is the Internet, and Whitman's poems can be quite long, this is only an excerpt.

From Song of Myself

From section entitled "Heroes"

I understand the large hearts of heroes,
The courage of present times and all times,
How the skipper saw the crowded and rudderless wreck of the steamship, and Death 
chasing it up and down the storm,
How he knuckled tight and gave not back an inch, and was faithful of days and faithful of
nights,
And chalked in large letters on a board, Be of good cheer, we will not desert you;
How he followed with them and tacked with them three days and would not give it up,
How he saved the drifting company at last,
How the lank loose-gowned women looked when boated from the side of their prepared
graves,
How the silent old-faced infants, and the lifted sick, and the sharp-lipped unshaved men;
All this I swallow, it tastes good, I like it well, it becomes mine,
I am the man, I suffered, I was there.

Agonies are one of my changes of garments,
I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person,
My hurt turns livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.

I am the mashed fireman with breast-bone broken,
Tumbling walls buried me in their debris,
Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades,
I heard the distant click of their picks and shovels;
They have cleared the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth.

I lie in the night air in my red shirt, the pervading hush is for my sake,
Painless after all I lie exhausted but not so unhappy,
White and beautiful are the faces around me, the heads are bared of their firecaps,
the kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches...