He even looked like Uncle Sam. Photograph of Walt Whitman by George C. Cox in 1887 in New York – public domain image
(8) WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892)
“I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world”
Who hasn’t wanted to sound a barbaric yawp at one time or another?
Also the poet everyone knows from Dead Poet’s Society, since he wrote the poem being quoted and indeed titled as “O Captain! My Captain!”
By the way, that poem was written for the death of President Lincoln in 1865. It was also not the only Whitman reference in the film or the book on which it was based – both were obviously influenced by Whitman fandom, but then so is much of American poetry and literary culture, which brings me to my next point.
With the possible exception of another special mention, Walt Whitman is the American poet. The Great American Poet as it were, in the same vein as those books touted as the Great American Novel. Although I don’t know why there’s debate on the contenders for the Great American Novel when it’s obviously Catch-22. Search your feelings – you know it to be true.
Yes – I hear your query. Wait a minute Stark After Dark – don’t you rank American poets over than Whitman in your top ten, including e.e. cummings in your top spot? Not to mention William Carlos Williams, Sylvia Plath, and Ishmael Reed in eighth, ninth, and tenth place respectively. For that matter, you can claim T.S. Eliot as American poet, since he was born and raised in the United States, only moving to England at the age of 25 (in 1914). And there’s a few more American poets in special mentions to come.
“Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes”
And yes – while I’m tempted to argue for e.e.cummings as the American poet or the Great American Poet, I have to admit that Whitman is more lyrical, and more fundamentally, embodies the United States in so much of his verse.
What better image of the United States than a nation sounding its barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world?
As per art historian Mary Berenson – “You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman”.
And Ezra Pound was even more blunt, calling Whitman “America’s poet… He is America.”
As for which Whitman poem to select for this entry, one is spoilt for choice. There’s the collection of poetry for which he is famed – Leaves of Grass. (To quote Homer Simpson when he finds out the grave that he thought was his mother’s was instead that of Walt Whitman – “leaves of grass, my ass!”.
There’s the most famous poem from that collection – Song of Myself, from which both that barbaric yawp and containing multitudes quotes come from – and so many others, including of course O Captain My Captain. However, I have to go with When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, another elegy written for the death of Lincoln.
RATING:
A-TIER (TOP TIER)