"And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier." It would be of no surprise if Walt Whitman swam though the tributaries of old eastern religious and developed his ideology from it's rivers. The soul is constantly referenced and the belief in the manifestation of god in the soul is a part of many eastern religions. The belief in reincarnation is another, meditation and so on.
My favorite part of Leaves of Grass was when he talked about death. As a believer of reincarnation he affirmed the idea that there is no death, only the rearrival of life. He says that every sprout of grass is proof of that. We have no inference on how creatures may receive souls but one could infer that everything does. There is energy inside every sprout and if a soul is present in it, it is most likely one of something past. The belief that life and the soul is eternal is comforting to me and meaningful.
"Houses and rooms are full of perfumes...shelves are crowded with perfumes, I breathe the fragrence myself, and know it and like it... the atmosphere is not a perfume.... it has no taste.. it is odorless." Walking to school this morning, struggling under the weight of my backpack, I breathed the morning air expecting a cold zing to run up my nostrils. Instead, much to my disappointment, hovering in the air was literally the smells of cheap perfume and exhaust from old cars with bad gas mileage. This experience raised the question, is or has the atmosphere ever been perfumeless?
Lets say the world developed an incredible hunger for onions, mass produced onions become redibly available, and the onion eaters, stressed from their long days at work, explode out onion breath with each desperate heave; then the world would smell like onion breath. But instead, with industrialization, the manipulation of body smells and the over cleanliness of the human species, and the overpopulation of the world, the atmosphere has been manipulated into a circus of perfumes conducted below on the crust of the earth. An atmosphere that at one time would have been odorless is now sprinkled with scent.
"Is Liberty gone out of place? No never...When the memories of the old martyrs are faded utterly away...when large names of patriots are laughed at in the public halls from the lips of the orators... when the boys are no more christened after the same but christened after tyrants and traitors instead...when all life and all the souls of men and women are discharged from any part of the earth- then only shall the instinct of liberty be discharged from that part of the earth." The greatest of poets, according to Walt Whitman, are those who are able to seek out liberty and heroism in the souls of everyone. Liberty is described as a strong will to do right, survive, to live fully, and to destroy those who oppress. Walt says that this will always exist as long as the world stays round and does not flip over. As long as time has existed, so has liberty. Martyrs, which no longer exist because of a social backlash that occurs when acts of martyrdom take place, are, to Walt, the perfect example of liberty and heroism. We need more martyrs.
"Exact Science and its practical movements are no checks on the greatest poet but always his encouragement and support...of them and by them stand the visible proofs of souls." As Walt would say, the scientists are not poets but rather the law makers of poets, the constructors of reality and the foundation of poetry. The new bounds of science show us how far our soul expands into the universe and intensifies our acknowledgement of what is. Science charges into an object and polls out the things unseen, just as a poet escapes into nomina.
Without sciences and 'Science-people' the world of poetry and all of its spectrums and conditions would be unstudied and unconstructable because scientists are the definers of all things. The Poet and the Scientist are the same being but with different wills.
"(The Poet's poetry should) cheer up slaves and horrify despots." A poet at his pedestal can be the most frightening and the most love-arousing human in the world. Carving out emotions and striking people in places that are vulnerable. The goal is to liberate the souls of whom you wish to liberate and to shake the those who you feel should be shaken. The souls of men are easy to flounder and there is no other weapons more suitable than the knife, gun, and THE POEM,
Each poem has a theme and a message, problem and resolution. Without being able to stir blood, you will not be able to get across your message to your listeners and it will hit them only as a flesh wound when a poet really wants the heart to explode and the blood to bubble.
"The clearest expression is that which finds no sphere worthy of itself and makes one." Previously, Walt had said two things that lead to this idea of deviancy in poetry. Firstly, he said that simplicity is important and that we should not water down the poem by injecting worthless, artless words that contribute nothing but flowery language to the poem. Secondly, he also said that we should not limit ourselves to the rules of poetry and that we should take our focuses away from similes and the beautiful verses of poetry and focus in on the message and on the moment it is depicting.
Whitman is implying that poets should experiment and brake former precedent in order to orchestration the event or message more accurately and with beautiful purity. Walt was typically a free form poet and his art definitely echos this element of his poetics. E. E. Cummings, Ginsberg, John k. and many other modern poets follow this rule.
Allen Ginsberg
"He places himself where the future becomes present" To leave a chunk of eternity is perhaps the most powerful thing you could possibly do and it is a common goal for the human species. The promise of legacy is what drives the human vehicle. What other reason is there to report prophesies, prescribe unimaginable meanings, to work, scale mountains; it is the main force behind exploration and selflessness.
Walt is not only speaking of leaving behind eternity but leaving behind a eternal message. That should be the goal of a bard, if it indeed acts to be purely that. The soul, society, love will all be identified with for eternities.
Also, the poem itself holds an eternal message to the reader. A poem enables people of all times to look at a moment and feel what it is like to be there. The synthesizing effect of poetry is perhaps its defining characteristics and the most powerful thing in the universe (besides energy)
"(The Poet) does not focus on the pleasure of sound, handsome measure, or similes." Whitman believes wholeheartedly that the poem is defined entirely on its content and not its playful flowery language and literary technique. These things deprive the reader of the reality, the nomina that the poet is so eagerly trying to convey in the poem. It is the path around the path and the manipulation of true theme. Walt Whitman says the best poet must say exactly as he means even if it sounds unpleasant or incorrect. The job of the poet is not to sooth senses but to stimulate them with new realities and stories.
Flowery Language
"Folks expect of the poet to indicate more than the beauty and dignity which always attach to dumb real objects...They expect him to indicated the path between reality and their souls." To be nominal is to be able to look past the world that is appearances and draw a deeper and more intellectual reality. When presented with a desk, the phenomenal bard quickly comes to the conclusion on how the desk is used, what the desk is made of, and the appearance of the desk. Their evaluation would look like this: 'The desk located at one side of the classroom is the teacher's desk, on it is her belongings and it is where she spends a lot of her day. It has four legs and a top.' A nominal bard, if truly nominal, would describe the desk like this: 'The desk is located on the north side of the classroom, side furthest from the door to dodge interruption from late students and for that she could watch them do their tasks. Her desk is cluttered with work but also with secret love letters of the poet in three classrooms over, but they are tucked away from the noticing eye. By the way she hovers around it, it is very probable, and the age suggests, that the desk had belonged to a dead relative or some kind of royalty. The legs were rotting under the mound of papers on the desk's plane.'
The nominal speaker draws connects to things that the eye can't see and only the soul can feel. The nominal poet opens up a world that is uncombattable and true.
"(the poet) bestows on every object or quality its fit proportions, neither more or less." To be equable is to be calm and clear sighted. The poet needs to be able to see all things as one and approach things honestly and on neutral grounds. Hermann Hesse once said that for everything that is true, the opposite is just as true. The poet must acknowledge this twenty-fold and realize that not only are truth and lie the same but also that a coin has infinite sides and that each one exists in entirety and rationality. 'He is no arguer, he is judgement. He judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing.' Walt says of the poet. Poet must be one of infinite wisdom and clear-sighted interpretism.
|
RSS Feed