The Walt Whitman Blog / Transnational Poetry

Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg are two poets that have comparable poetic tendencies despite living almost a century apart from one another. Many critics argue that Ginsberg could perhaps have been inspired by Whitman. Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and Ginsberg’s “Howl” share many obvious and subtle similarities that are examined by a number of different critics. Interestingly, each poet, though separated by almost a century, has similar thoughts and interests despite two very different cultural atmospheres. In particular, “Song of Myself” and “Howl” seem to be in spiritual conversation with one another. When reading “Howl”, I can’t help but to imagine Ginsberg writing where Whitman left off. Each poet seems to have a profound interest in transcendence and nature and the spiritual tendencies in the different poems almost mirror one another. Poet Galway Kinnell has said, “I feel that Ginsberg is the only one to understand Whitman and to bring into the poetry of our time a comparable music”. One of the most prevalent themes in both “Song of Myself” and “Howl” is a reaction to the political and cultural tendencies of each poet’s time. Both Whitman and Ginsberg lived during times of extreme cultural and political change in America and each poet represented their thoughts, views, and opinions of their America in their poetry. Whitman and Ginsberg respond to the changing of the times in a similar fashion in “Song of Myself” and “Howl” through the poets reactions to the culture of their America, the poets thoughts and opinions of political events, as well as each poets reaction to their own homosexuality.

Whitman and Ginsberg share a similar vision and it may be interesting to question how each poet speaks to America not only through the words of their poetry, but through the way each poem is written. Not only are “Song of Myself” and “Howl” similar thematically, each poem contains similar poetic techniques.

So the whole Bukowski plan of action fell through, new topic!!!

In my paper I will be discussing the connection the importance of the body in the works of Walt Whitman and Allen Ginsberg. I want to depict the important influence that Whitman had on the works of Ginsberg in refection of the human body and the many connotations that it holds for both poets. There are several ways the body peers into each of the poets works. There is how it appears in a sexual context, the subjective body, and views on the body as a sanctuary.

Whitman opened the door for many homosexual poets to explore the realm of homosexual sensuality, something that Ginsberg runs with and illustrates very openly. In his poems, such as “Love Poem on a Theme by Whitman” and “Please Master”, he approaches sex in an almost pornographically explicit way. He feels this exposure is necessary for liberating inter fantasies and exposing the readers mind I will discuss how this is an extension of Whitman’s work and also how it contrasts it.

There is also the role in which the body take on a more political and metaphoric role. Whitman’s body seems to transcend itself and represent a certain sense of democracy. He believes we are all connected and all belong to the body of America, which is stressed in “Song of Myself”, who title hints to personal refection but the content is largely revolved around other people. The body also provided for Whitman a chance to critic the civil war, largely by portraying a physical form that it wounded or sick as we see in several of his “Drum Tap” poems. Ginsberg also carries with him varied array of political messages through his descriptions of the physical form which I will discuss more thoroughly in my paper.

Both poets feel strongly about the physical body being a spiritual thing. Ginsberg’s feelings of nakedness seem like an almost religious and sublime cleansing process. He felt the frankness and honesty in a naked body helped purify the mind and soul. This openness and extreme honesty is seen again and again in his works. Whitman’s feelings on the physical body as being a sacred and deeply religious thing that he celebrates. He also felt that the hygiene and the health were very important, for if your cathedral is not healthy, your soul will not be healthy—so there is a great stress on hygiene and fitness in his works.

In our class, we have discussed Walt Whitman in several aspects and interpretations; he assumes many different forms, and yet many of them seem to operate in the guise of the masculine.  You see Whitman as the patriot, the prophet, the nationalist, as well as the war hero in a sense — even his poetry which echoes his homosexual tendencies is a celebration of men.

However, it is apparent in many of Whitman’s works that he is a huge supporter and admirer of women, relating to their emotional tendencies and appreciating their uniqueness in humanity.  Whitman maintained many close friendships with different women throughout his life and even tended to be a proponent for women’s rights before the suffrage movement took hold in America.  For my final paper, I am interested in pursuing the feminine characteristics of Whitman and his reinvention of gender roles as seen in his poetry, delving into the way that later female writers follow in his footsteps, assume his voice, and feminize his poetry as a way to relate to him on a level which others may not.  I am particularly interested in Sharon Olds’ poem “Nurse Whitman,” in which Olds takes the ideas of Whitman as a healer and caregiver (as seen in his experiences in the Civil War) and uses these qualities to reinvent him simultaneously into a nurse, daughter, mother, and lover.  She is able to connect with him on these levels of caring and sensuality, and cause them to blossom into something much more complex.  Much attention will be paid to this poem, with hope that some other contemporary examples can be found.  Whitman poems to be examined will include his Calamus poems (pertaining to sexuality), “I Sing the Body Electric,” certain stanzas from Leaves of Grass (denoting compassion, interconnectedness, caring, sensuality), and perhaps a few of his Drum-Taps.  Ultimately, this paper will explore Whitman’s reinvention as a pseudo-feminist icon by his later female admirers. 

After all, Whitman himself once said to Horace Traubel, “Leaves of Grass is essentially a woman’s book:  the women do not know it, but every now and then a woman shows that she knows it:  it speaks out of the necessities, its cry is the cry of the right and the wrong of the woman sex — of the woman first of all, of the facts of creation first of all — of the feminine:  speaks out loud, warns, encourages, persuades, points the way.”

I intend to write a paper that explores how Whitman’s “Passage to India” and Juliana Spahr’s This Connection of Everyone with Lungs  place each poet’s voice in relationship to technological advances, primarily advances in electronic media,  occurring in the world around them.  I found this topic interesting, because as I read Sphar’s This Connection I was struck with the feeling that electronic communication was the invisible, but not silent, presence in her poem that seems to connect everyone and everything in the world together; for instance, media seems to saturate the later half of her poem when even the birds seem to be eerily singing  or repeating news broadcasts.  

So, I felt this idea—that electronic media seems to be the glue that holds everything in the world together disheartening, yet also intriguing at the same time.   I also feel that Whitman was certainly hitting on a similar theme of telecommunication connecting the world together in “Passage to India,” yet it seems that Walt was embracing technological progress in this poem, and maybe saw advances in the telegraph as a way for the poet’s voice to become disembodied and hence more representative of a “natural” or “primordial” state of human existence that could lead to global reconciliation.  Hence, Spahr’s poem seems to challenge Whitman’s view (at least in “Passage to India”) that engineering advances would be the great reconciler for all of humanity, but her poem simultaneously seems to assert Whitman’s view that communicating electronically would be the link that binds people together globally.

I’m still waffling on a final thesis, but I’ve found some really good sources that gel together nicely with my overall topic. So I feel pretty confortable with the research aspect of my paper.  However, my primary concern right now is probably the lack of critical commentary on Spahr, especially in the “electronic media” corner that it seems I’ve painted myself into.  So if anyone has stumbled upon This Connection commentary, I’d be more than glad to hear about it.