Conversation Starter 2/4/2021

“I celebrate myself…” Walt Whitman pgs. 27-99.

I found Whitman’s “I celebrate myself” poem to be quite the evocative and meaningful read, in that throughout it’s branching paths of symbolism I find that there is always some deeper meaning to them as a whole. His opening pages 27-29 seem to discuss his ties to nature and that by letting one as he writes “go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked.” to me evokes references to the act of letting go of your physical restraints your wants and material greed is but limiters to experiencing true freedom and peace within the confines of nature. His discussion that a poet can be all that he can be, by simply taking all things of nature and creation into oneself and filter them using their own experiences and opinions is what makes a true poet in that regard. His reference to a child asking “What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands” and that he truly could not explain all that encapsulates what that “grass” is and that made me think of it as more of a passing cycle of life and death, and that in time all creations of god are made of the Earth this grass and that they all in time will return to and become the building blocks of life for the next cycle. I found his notion that “What is commonest and cheapest and nearest and easiest is ME,” on page 38 to be quite thought provoking as he states that the bare minimum at least in my opinion is what only truly matters in order to live a “good” life and by that I mean a life that has purpose in a way of speaking. He goes to on elaborate on this by referencing many different people and even plants and animals have a goal and or role that they perform every day in cycle of “life” that all seems to be interwoven with each other. Whitman’s love for nature and its processes are made more apparent in regards to what is written on page 47, in that he begins by addressing that he has found “love” in regards to the “Far-swooping elbowed earth! Rich apple-blossomed earth! Smile, for your lover comes!” I view this and the lines that followed and came before this particular passage to be affirmations of Whitman’s high regards to the natural world and how it cares for humanity by providing humanity a form of “love” that I see as the natural cycle of survival. I also found Whitman’s change in discussion from page 64 onwards to be more “dark” and melancholy in nature, with his statement that he understands and embodies the suffering of others to be symbolistic of a man who is trying to come to terms with death and the suffering that one may attribute to it. For example on page 65 in particular he describes a runaway slave and the horrible treatment this man suffers upon his recapture, and then on the following page, (66) he describes what must be his own interpretation of what a soldier at the defense of Alamo must have endured and witnessed before his inevitable death to be quite imaginative but nonetheless beautiful in that they perfectly encapsulate differing forms of suffering and despair that go alongside death, of which some are peaceful, merciful, kind, while others are the pinnacle of chaotic, cruel, and just sickening. These are just my opinions on what I believe Whitman was trying to discuss/demonstrate in this particular version of his poem, and I encourage others to come forward with their own interpretations of these passages so that we may formulate a more diverse understanding of his work.

2/2/2021 Tyler Carnohan