* A Prose Quote From Walt Whitman Appropriate To The Spirit Of This Blog (1855 Preface To 'Leaves Of Grass') Poem by Bill Grace

* A Prose Quote From Walt Whitman Appropriate To The Spirit Of This Blog (1855 Preface To 'Leaves Of Grass')

Rating: 3.7


'Through the divinity of themselves shall the kosmos and the new breed of poets be interpreters of men and women and of all events and things. They shall find their inspiration in real objects to-day, symptoms of the past and future....They shall not deign to defend immortality or God or the perfection of things or liberty or the exquisite beauty and reality of the soul. They shall arise in America and be responded to from the remainder of the earth.'

Quoted from 'The Harvard Classics' edited by Charles W, Eliot copyright of 1938 by P. F. Collier & Son Corporation 'Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books with Introductions and Notes' New York page 407 to 408.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Chinedu Dike 26 February 2017

Insightful excerpts from the father of Free-verse. I doff my hat to the literary giant. Thanks Bill.

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Wojja Fink 30 May 2009

thanks for posting that Bill, well worth a read................John

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Michael Pruchnicki 08 April 2008

I prefer the free verse of Whitman to the prose excerpt you posted - Have you read the following? I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, Those of mechanics, each one singing his as if it should be blithe and strong, The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam, The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work, The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck... Or this passage from Song of Songs - My lover is radiant and ruddy, outstanding among ten thousand. His head is purest gold, his hair is wavy and black as a raven. His eyes are like doves by the water streams, washed in milk, mounted like jewels.

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