One of my personal favorite aspects of quality poetry is the idea that form matches content. To clarify, this entails that the poem’s structure on the page, the poem’s rhythm and grammar, even how the poem is punctuated, matches the content (the ideas, images, plots, and themes) of the poem. As we’ve seen, Whitman’s work is a brilliant example of form matching content. His raw, rambling, lively free verse is the perfect medium for his equally raw, passionate, and often explicit content. Yet Whitman, unlike many poets, has an extra layer to his form: his order.
Whitman is intensely passionate about how his works are laid out on the page, how they are printed, and how his repeated editions of Leaves of Grass are laid out. Thus, the order of his poems in his text carries similar weight in terms of his form when compared to the verse itself. Let’s take a look at the Calamus sequence of poems. Some aspects of the importance of order and the story it tells are quite obvious. Opening with “In Paths Untrodden,” Whitman introduces the themes the Calamus poems will cover. They will travel “paths untrodden” to explore “the soul of the man” and his “need for comrades” (268). A relatively blunt opening poem. Now let’s take a took at the final Calamus work, “Full of Life Now.” This poem concludes the sequence with a strong sense of finality. He is “full of life now” and, at long last “now with you,” signifying the end of his journey throughout the sequence, reaching the end of the paths untrodden (287).
These two poems bookend Calamus well, establishing a strong beginning and end. But what about the 37 poems that occur between these two? Is there a running plot, some overarching storyline that these poems contain? Are they grouped thematically within the sequence? Why is “Here the Frailest Leaves of Me” placed before “No Labor-Saving Machine” and not after? What is the importance of order in Calamus, and what message does Walt Whitman aim to convey through this ordering?
I love that this is about the structure and form of his poem, and how much it upholds the themes and content of his poetry. Like we said in class, if we look closely enough we can see just how much thought Walt Whitman puts into the structure and form of his poetry, even though at first glance it looks almost formless. When reading Calamus, I definitely think there is this message that Walt Whitman is conveying. These poems riddled with phallic symbols and confessions of male love are sure to reach every reader differently. In the article we read for today, Killingsworth describes almost a lonely love that Walt Whitman is writing about. In Calamus, Walt Whitman is directly talking to readers years into the future in “Recorders Ages Hence”. He talks about the lonely walks he takes just thinking about his friends and lovers, and how he only has memories to look back on where he was happiest with them. This poem to me felt like the most lonely parts of love. And then directly following in the poem “When I Heard at the Close of the Day”, Walt Whitman talks about how he is happiest when he is with the one he loves. He describes how nothing can compare to the love they share, and ultimately, I think the drastic difference between these two poems highlights that alienation that Killingsworth was discussing in this article. Whitman uses Calamus as a way to write about his love for his comrades, and also shares how lonely it can be because the world outside of your love will never accept you. I definitely went on a little bit of a tangent here, but I really liked your question and I can’t wait to hear what someone else has to say about it!
Hollis, you ask some really thoughtful questions here about the order of the poems, and I have to admit that this never occurred to me before as something important to consider, but I am certainly considering it now. My first question is, how much involvement did Whitman have in the ordering of his poems in the sections of “Leaves of Grass”? Is poem order something determined by the editor to save space in printing? I wonder if the Calamus poems appeared in any other versions of “Leaves of Grass” and if the order of the poems ever changed in those other versions.
But in this case, I have been looking at some of the poems in the middle section of Calamus, and with the six I’ve been looking at (“Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances” through “Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone” (274-277)), I can’t seem to find any particular order to them or explanation for why they are in the order they are in. Each one, however, seems to present a new idea or draw a new conclusion about love. For instance, I think in “Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances,” Whitman might be telling us that love can be easily lost or unrequited, thus making it scary. Later, in “Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone,” Whitman might want us to draw the conclusion that love is beautiful from its inception while growing more beautiful over time. The other poems between these two seem to also portray universal meanings about love. So perhaps the order of the Calamus poems is used to demonstrate the fluidity of love, the fact that love has many forms and exists is many ways. Instead of having a strict chronology, love is circular in its fluidity, constantly in motion, having no strictly definable form.
I’m glad we got to start this conversation in class because I have really been thinking about it regarding “Frailest Leaves.” This is a pretty simple observation, but I wanted to point it out. While this poem is placed in the middle of the book, it feels more like a foreword, similar to “In Paths Untrodden” or even “Whoever You Are Holding My Hand.” I hesitate to call it a warning, because we get more explicit and obvious warnings in “Whoever You Are,” but nonetheless, he frames his poems in a way that is helpful for reading them further confiding in the reader that “they expose me more than all my other poems” (283). Naturally, this would exist at the beginning of the collection to direct the reader with certainty.This feels intentional; it feels like an interruption and an interjection. Whitman stops his reader in the comfortable sequence to make them pause and question the validity(?) honesty(?) clarity(?) of what they are actually reading, rather than letting them continue through the book. Once again, it feels like even more of a secret than all else he writes; if we pay attention, we can catch these three lines that are critical to the understanding of the whole book.
Hey Hollis, I think you pose an interesting question! After reading the other responses to your post, I feel like there definitely may be something more to the order of his works in Calamus. Like Vanessa mentioned in her reply, I feel like since there are new revelations about love in each poem, this could point to a fluid direction, rather than a calculated order, of his poems. This could relate to the idea of how love presents itself in life: it has lots of highs and lows (like a rollercoaster), and a lot of gains and seemingly more lows.
I would imagine being a gay man in this time period; Whitman’s need to hide his sexuality would have made these emotions much more unbearable, which we get a glimpse of in “Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances”. This poem suggests having a lover hiding in plain sight, and gets followed by similar poems, including, “Are You the New Person Drawn toward Me?”, suggesting a new love interest. If Calamus is in fact in chronological order like you suggest, this points to the notion Whitman is having an ongoing journey through life with his sexuality. This book of works could be highlighting his path of figuring out how to accept his sexuality in a time when his sexuality was not accepted by society, and these intimate recounts of memories with male lovers could be proof to be true to himself. Including “Full of Life Now” as the last poem, could be Whitman finally being at peace with who he is, allowing him to be “full of life” and accepting his experiences with love throughout his life.
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