By Whitman, Biweekly! November 3rd

By Whitman, Biweekly!
Tuesday November 3rd,  4pm SLT
Caledon Library, on the Hub in Victoria City
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Caledon%20Victoria%20City/160/117/23

A Discussion led by Dame Kghia Gheardi of the works of Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass is one of the works at the foundations of American poetry. Its expansive attempt to capture the spirit and landscape of the 19th century United States has influenced an entire culture's self-concept, and its rich language continues to inspire readers today as it has for the century and a half of its existence.

"By Whitman, BI-Weekly" will provide an opportunity to look closely at this beloved work. Each time we'll spend an hour discussing its context and examining the poetry of the 1855 first edition.

The series will also give those who love Leaves of Grass, and those who would like to learn more, an opportunity to explore Whitman's vigorous and heartfelt poetry together.

Here is what we'll discuss this week

***LEAVES OF GRASS***

COME closer to me,
Push close my lovers and take the best I possess,
Yield closer and closer and give me the best you possess.

This is unfinished business with me . . . . how is it with you?
I was chilled with the cold types and cylinder and wet paper between us.

I pass so poorly with paper and types . . . . I must pass with the contact of bodies
         and souls.

I do not thank you for liking me as I am, and liking the touch of me . . . . I know that
         it is good for you to do so.

Were all educations practical and ornamental well displayed out of me, what would
         it amount to?
Were I as the head teacher or charitable proprietor or wise statesman, what would
         it amount to?
Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would that satisfy you?

The learned and virtuous and benevolent, and the usual terms;
A man like me, and never the usual terms.

Neither a servant nor a master am I,
I take no sooner a large price than a small price . . . . I will have my own whoever
         enjoys me,
I will be even with you, and you shall be even with me.

If you are a workman or workwoman I stand as nigh as the nighest that works in
         the same shop,
If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend, I demand as good as your
         brother or dearest friend,
If your lover or husband or wife is welcome by day or night, I must be personally as

If you have become degraded or ill, then I will become so for your sake;
If you remember your foolish and outlawed deeds, do you think I cannot remember
         my foolish and outlawed deeds?
If you carouse at the table I say I will carouse at the opposite side of the table;
If you meet some stranger in the street and love him or her, do I not often meet
         strangers in the street and love them?
If you see a good deal remarkable in me I see just as much remarkable in you.

Why what have you thought of yourself?
Is it you then that thought yourself less?
Is it you that thought the President greater than you? or the rich better off than
         you? or the educated wiser than you?

Because you are greasy or pimpled—or that you was once drunk, or a thief, or
         diseased, or rheumatic, or a prostitute—or are so now—or from frivolity or
         impotence—or that you are no scholar, and never saw your name in print . . . .
         do you give in that you are any less immortal?

Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen, unheard, untouchable and
         untouching;
It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whether you are alive or
         no;
I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns . . . . and see and hear you, and
         what you give and take;
What is there you cannot give and take?

I see not merely that you are polite or whitefaced . . . . married or single . . . .
         citizens of old states or citizens of new states . . . . eminent in some profession
          . . . . a lady or gentleman in a parlor . . . . or dressed in the jail uniform . . . .
         or pulpit uniform,
Not only the free Utahan, Kansian, or Arkansian . . . . not only the free Cuban . . .
         not merely the slave . . . . not Mexican native, or Flatfoot, or negro from
         Africa,
Iroquois eating the warflesh—fishtearer in his lair of rocks and sand . . . .
         Esquimaux in the dark cold snowhouse . . . . Chinese with his transverse eyes
          . . . . Bedowee—or wandering nomad—or tabounschik at the head of his
         droves,
Grown, half-grown, and babe—of this country and every country, indoors and out-
         doors I see . . . . and all else is behind or through them.

The wife—and she is not one jot less than the husband,
The daughter—and she is just as good as the son,
The mother—and she is every bit as much as the father.

Offspring of those not rich—boys apprenticed to trades,

Young fellows working on farms and old fellows working on farms;
The naive . . . . the simple and hardy . . . . he going to the polls to vote . . . . he
         who has a good time, and he who has a bad time;
Mechanics, southerners, new arrivals, sailors, mano'warsmen, merchantmen, coast-
         ers,
All these I see . . . . but nigher and farther the same I see;
None shall escape me, and none shall wish to escape me.

I bring what you much need, yet always have,
I bring not money or amours or dress or eating . . . . but I bring as good;
And send no agent or medium . . . . and offer no representative of value—but offer
         the value itself.

There is something that comes home to one now and perpetually,
It is not what is printed or preached or discussed . . . . it eludes discussion and
         print,
It is not to be put in a book . . . . it is not in this book,
It is for you whoever you are . . . . it is no farther from you than your hearing and
         sight are from you,
It is hinted by nearest and commonest and readiest . . . . it is not them, though it is
         endlessly provoked by them . . . . What is there ready and near you now?
You may read in many languages and read nothing about it;
You may read the President's message and read nothing about it there,
Nothing in the reports from the state department or treasury department . . . . or in
         the daily papers, or the weekly papers,
Or in the census returns or assessors' returns or prices current or any accounts of
         stock.

The sun and stars that float in the open air . . . . the appleshaped earth and we upon
         it . . . . surely the drift of them is something grand;
I do not know what it is except that it is grand, and that it is happiness,
And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation, or bon-mot or
         reconnoissance,
And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well for us, and without
         luck must be a failure for us,
And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain contingency.

The light and shade—the curious sense of body and identity—the greed that
         with perfect complaisance devours all things—the endless pride and out-
         stretching of man— unspeakable joys and sorrows,
The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees . . . . and the wonders that fill
         each minute of time forever and each acre of surface and space forever,

Have you reckoned them as mainly for a trade or farmwork? or for the profits of
         a store? or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill a gentleman's leisure or a
         lady's leisure?

Have you reckoned the landscape took substance and form that it might be painted
         in a picture?
Or men and women that they might be written of, and songs sung?
Or the attraction of gravity and the great laws and harmonious combinations and
         the fluids of the air as subjects for the savans?
Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and charts?
Or the stars to be put in constellations and named fancy names?
Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables or agriculture itself?

Old institutions . . . . these arts libraries legends collections—and the practice
         handed along in manufactures  . . . . will we rate them so high?
Will we rate our prudence and business so high? . . . . I have no objection,
I rate them as high as the highest . . . . but a child born of a woman and man I rate
         beyond all rate.

We thought our Union grand and our Constitution grand;
I do not say they are not grand and good—for they are,
I am this day just as much in love with them as you,
But I am eternally in love with you and with all my fellows upon the earth.

We consider the bibles and religions divine . . . . I do not say they are not divine,
I say they have all grown out of you and may grow out of you still,
It is not they who give the life . . . . it is you who give the life;
Leaves are not more shed from the trees or trees from the earth than they are shed
         out of you.

The sum of all known value and respect I add up in you whoever you are;
The President is up there in the White House for you . . . . it is not you who are
         here for him,
The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you . . . . not you here for them,
The Congress convenes every December for you,
Laws, courts, the forming of states, the charters of cities, the going and coming of
         commerce and mails are all for you.

All doctrines, all politics and civilization exurge from you,
All sculpture and monuments and anything inscribed anywhere are tallied in you,
The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records reach is in you this
         hour—and myths and tales the same;
If you were not breathing and walking here where would they all be?
The most renowned poems would be ashes . . . . orations and plays would be
         vacuums.


All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it;
Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of the arches and
         cornices?

All music is what awakens from you when you are reminded by the instruments,
It is not the violins and the cornets . . . . it is not the oboe nor the beating drums—
         nor the notes of the baritone singer singing his sweet romanza . . . . nor those
         of the men's chorus, nor those of the women's chorus,
It is nearer and farther than they.

Will the whole come back then?
Can each see the signs of the best by a look in the lookingglass? Is there nothing
         greater or more?
Does all sit there with you and here with me?