04 April 2013

April is NPM: Walt Whitman

The poet I find most rewarding to read is Walt Whitman.  Such imagery and beauty in his words.  Even "O Captain! My Captain!" is lovely to read even though it got a bit overdone between Dead Poets Society and having been set to music and sung by nearly every male choir while I was in high school.

But the poem I chose is the opening of Song of Myself which begs to be read aloud, slam poetry style.
I CELEBRATE myself;
And what I assume you shall assume;
For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my Soul;
I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes—the shelves are crowded with perfumes;
I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it;
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume—it has no taste of the distillation—it is odorless;
It is for my mouth forever—I am in love with it;
I will go to the bank by the wood, and become undisguised and naked;
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

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