LITR 5731:
Seminar in American Minority Literature
University of Houston-Clear Lake, spring 2003
Poetry Presentation Summary
April
29, 2003
Poetry
reader/discussion leader: Ginger Hilton
Discussion
recorder: Jana Stafford
Walt
Whitman was born May 31, 1819 in Long Island, New York. He read classics in his
youth, left school early to become a printer's apprentice, and worked as a
teacher and a journeyman printer in 1835. He held a variety of jobs at The
Brooklyn Eagle and The Brooklyn Times. The first edition of Leaves
of Grass was printed at his expense in July 1855.
Pfaff's
saloon was his favorite hangout. He met Ada Clare ("Queen of Bohemia")
and Fred Vaughan, a young Irish stage driver whom inspired the sequence of
homoerotic love poems (Calamus) which appeared in the 1860 edition of Leaves.
Vaughan later married and had four children, causing much grief for Whitman. He
joined the Fred Gray Association, a loose confederation of young men who wanted
to explore new possibilities of male-male affection.
William
Thayer and Charles Eldridge, owners of a Boston publishing house, pursued
Whitman to print the new edition of Leaves.
Whitman went to Boston to oversee the publication. He met Ralph Waldo Emerson
who told him not to publish the Calamus poems; Whitman refused to listen. He
said that the entire body - every part of the body including arm pits and
genitals - composed the fullness of human identity just as every part of
democracy - the poorest and most desperate to the wealthiest and most prominent
- composed the spirit of America. The Children of Adam poems regards male-female
relationships while the Calamus cluster celebrates the love of men for men.
Calamus is the name of a plant that grows along the river banks. It has a very
thick stalk and seeps a milky substance. Some critics called his poems indecent.
Whitman wanted to form a new kind of verse to discuss the bonds between men. He
called it "manly love." He thought we are all connected to nature. His
free verse broke the bounds of acceptable poetry thereby allowing him to break
the boundaries of sexual relationships.
After
his brother was injured in the Civil War and hospitalized in Washington, Whitman
traveled to Washington to nurse him back to health. Whitman became a volunteer
nurse for other wounded soldiers (both Northern and Southern) and spent hours
reading and visiting. One critic, Henry Seidel Canby, notes that Whitman's
sympathetic and heartfelt feelings were sublimated into a type of fatherly love
for innumerable sons. Whitman wanted to make an impression toward camaraderie
among men rather than competition. Canby states that Whitman's auto-eroticism
made it possible for him to feel the love of a woman as well as a man - and
combine the two into a sort of mother/father love. Canby also mentions that
there are no absolute sexual types.
He
helped take care of the patients and kissed them often.
It was not a dirty thing back then at all.
Dr.
White: America was in transition
from the earlier idea of men and what we have now.
Whitman
talks about “adhesiveness” or “manly love.”
Ginger:
He was upset after the war and wanted to unify the love between men.
This comes from one of his sections where he discusses a plant called a Calamus that is a phallic symbol.
Ginger:
Whitman questions in his poetry if there is anyone else like him?
This reminds her (Ginger) of the Best Little Boy in the World.
Read poem
Discussion
Ginger:
There is a lot of nature in this poem.
One
critic says that Whitman’s free verse assaults the norm for poetry.
* Question: How
does Whitman’s free verse empowers camaraderie among men?
Alcira:
It might not be the classic poetry but it’s not as funky as modern
poetry can be. It allows you to
focus on the homosexuality aspect of it but it also allows you to focus on just
the comaraderie part of it.
Dr.
White: This poem just seems to
express need.
Alcira: It almost seems communistic.
*Question
Ginger:
Why the title “The Paths Untrodden” from the nature aspect of it?
Sergio:
It’s unspoken
Ginger:
He separated from the conformities.
He separates from the attachments. It’s
not about what others think. I see
that he’s gone off some where that no one has been.
The part of the poem that discusses “the growth by margins of
pond-waters” is where he is referencing the Calamus.
Discussion
of Charles Gayler’s critique. Gayler
does not like Whitman’s work.
The
women embodied Whitman’s poetry, especially Leaves of Grass.
The men did not.
Whitman
was a baseball fan and coined the phrase that baseball is “America’s
game.”
Dr.
White: He thought of himself as a
man of the people.
This
poem takes me where, as a straight man, I don’t know where I’m being taken
exactly. It’s got a sensual
quality which I find very impressive but also very frightening at the same time.
I think it’s a good poem if it can do that.
Alcira:
Mentions Rimbaud and Verlaine’s poetry.
This is a poem that is never more shocking to the American audience.
Dr.
White: We have to go back to
Ginger’s first question in that in order to violate the social standards you
almost have to violate the traditional poetic style.
Ginger:
Points out that Whitman discusses the ninth month and feels it’s a
reference to a new beginning—as in birth.
Dr.
White: Informs us that Whitman has
a Quaker background which could be referring to the way the Quaker’s spoke--e.
g., "ninth-month" means September, as in 9/11.
Alcira:
It is also funny how all the homosexuality literature is so open but with
this, it’s more ________.
Dr.
White: There is something kind of
chaste about the way he presents this poem.
In
Frederick Douglass critiques, it is commented that “you’ve never heard this
kind of voice before.”
Whitman
can breed love into others. He can
feel like a woman and feel like a man. Whitman
feels there are no absolute sexual identities.
That sexuality is a fluid thing.
One
other thing about Whitman is that you can’t just say “Whitman is a gay
poet” because he shows up in feminist literature as well. A surprising number of women were glad that someone opened up
these issues.
He
does so much that it is easy not to pay too much attention to only one aspect of
him, i.e. the gay aspect. He’s a
very fertile poet.
Rosalyn:
Discusses Whitman’s poem about watching 21 boys on the beach and its
very sensual aspects.
Dr.
White: He went to Washington and
worked a day job but went at night to the hospital during the civil war.
He would read to the soldiers and write letters home for them. His health
really went down and he had a stroke right after all of this altruism.