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A review by everyeggmm
Walt Whitman: The Complete Poems by Walt Whitman
5.0
I first encountered Walt Whitman through my reading of a first-edition version of Leaves of Grass back in April. What captivated me then captivates me now, and that is the pure personality behind Whitman's tradition-defying poems. This book offers the "Deathbed" edition of Leaves of Grass along with other non-Leaves WW poems. While when Whitman shines he shines like no other, reading his complete works has taught me that he is also capable of boring one to sleep. Given however that he wrote some 400+ poems I believe it can only be expected that some will be duds, and besides the great poems far make up for the ones that are lacking.
Perhaps just as important as the poems, in this book are the some 200 pages of notes in the back and an introduction in the front, both of which shed light on the history of each poem and allow the reader an insight into how as Whitman aged and the nation changed (this being the period of the Civil War) so did the intentions and meanings behind his poems.
While I have several issues with Whitman and those aspects of him expressed in some of his poems (such as his praising of an America that at the time deserved no applause, and his rampant egoism), I also believe that there is a reason he's been remembered the way he has. Whitman, despite all his faults, was able to, in perfect Transcendentalist praxis, break away from the trappings of the old world and create a work that was truly original, and in the process help cement for America its own poetic legacy. And while his poems did not overturn organized religion and create a religion of Personality, nor did they free the culture from patriarchy and the suppression of sex, I believe that the best of Whitman's works accomplish easily at least two of his numerous goals: they stir life within the reader, inspiring instead of lecturing, urging the reader to find within themselves that which is their truth, and secondly they document in complexity the life and thoughts of a single soul living at a single point in time. Whitman's poetry was an effort to reach out across space and time and make a connection to the reader, and with his leaves he has done that and so much more.
Perhaps just as important as the poems, in this book are the some 200 pages of notes in the back and an introduction in the front, both of which shed light on the history of each poem and allow the reader an insight into how as Whitman aged and the nation changed (this being the period of the Civil War) so did the intentions and meanings behind his poems.
While I have several issues with Whitman and those aspects of him expressed in some of his poems (such as his praising of an America that at the time deserved no applause, and his rampant egoism), I also believe that there is a reason he's been remembered the way he has. Whitman, despite all his faults, was able to, in perfect Transcendentalist praxis, break away from the trappings of the old world and create a work that was truly original, and in the process help cement for America its own poetic legacy. And while his poems did not overturn organized religion and create a religion of Personality, nor did they free the culture from patriarchy and the suppression of sex, I believe that the best of Whitman's works accomplish easily at least two of his numerous goals: they stir life within the reader, inspiring instead of lecturing, urging the reader to find within themselves that which is their truth, and secondly they document in complexity the life and thoughts of a single soul living at a single point in time. Whitman's poetry was an effort to reach out across space and time and make a connection to the reader, and with his leaves he has done that and so much more.