Walt Whitman

Dear Ian:
Sunday and Whitman. For me, there could be no better combination. I know a lot of people go to church on Sundays to reflect and listen to homilies; I choose to spend my Sundays with Whitman. Leaves of Grass makes me "feel" Sunday.

Most people will break down Leaves into many separate poems. Whitman considered the book to be one long poem. Who are we to argue?

I like to open it up to random pages and just read a few lines. Then again there are the tried and true pages that I go to time and again.

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ONE’S-SELF I sing—a simple, separate Person;

Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-masse.


Of Physiology from top to toe I sing;

Not physiognomy alone, nor brain alone, is worthy for the muse—I say the Form complete is worthier far;

The Female equally with the male I sing.

Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,

Cheerful—for freest action form’d, under the laws divine,

The Modern Man I sing.
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Really, after that, do I need anything else?