That’s right, Walt Whitman. He may not be as well-known for his love poems as others, and his critics might say he was too busy loving himself, but to that I counter that he loved himself no less than others, and no more. I just started going back to studying the “Calamus” section of Leaves…
Tag: Leaves of Grass
There’s Something Wrong with my Whitman Book
There’s something wrong with my Whitman book–it’s too clean. I bought it new because I couldn’t find it used, and the pages are so white and clinical. Leaves of Grass should be on paper growing dark with age, folded and wrinkled through frequent use. It’s hard to read crisp, pristine pages proclaiming the secret of the twenty-ninth bather. The book belongs in the woods, not on a shelf.
A bit of genius that just made me so happy to read tonight. It’s good to know I am not alone in such thoughts, but I could never have thought to put it into these words of Ricky’s I’m downright jealous in fact. I wish I had written this. It’s a poem in prose.
Thank you, Ricky, it’s good to meet a man as addicted to books as I am to poetry itself. I cannot think of these as bad obsessions.
Daddy Walt, or Uncle Walt? Happy Birthday to My Namesake
I have often been asked if my father’s name was Walt, or if I was a fan of Walt Whitman. Some people who are a little less poetry versed have even asked if my pseudonym was a reference to Walt Disney–God forbid! My father’s name was Raymond, actually, and I often refer to Walt Whitman as “Uncle…
David J. Bauman 