Reading Walt Whitman's Song of Myself...

[Manzelle]

I hate this poem...it's longwinded and boring...I like to read and I read all the time but this is absolute torture...how is this considered a classic?

 

[BeauJangles]

i think whitman in general is boring. Leaves of Grass is nothing more than ramblings about making love to trees. I really could never get into it or him as a writer.

 

[gotsmack]

blasphemy

Song of Myself is THE great american poem. The revised version is much better than the origina poem, but the quality drops off after verse 23.


verse 1.

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.





Walt's other work isn't that great, but Song of Myself is definately an american classic.

The thing about poetry is that you have to read a lot of bad poems to find the true gems.

 

[Manzelle]

Originally posted by: gotsmack
blasphemy

Song of Myself is THE great american poem. The revised version is much better than the origina poem, but the quality drops off after verse 23.


verse 1.

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.





Walt's other work isn't that great, but Song of Myself is definately an american classic.

The thing about poetry is that you have to read a lot of bad poems to find the true gems.

Well, considering the poem is 1340 lines and 52 verses I would say that it is garbage and not great if the quality drops off before it is even half-way completed...it just doesn't do anything for me except negate my use for Nyquil...