Blog Post 1: Topic 3

             Walt Whitman is canonized as one of the most influential American poets. He began writing in 1850 and published “Song of Myself” from Leaves of Grass in 1855. This point in American history saw rise to the Industrial Revolution and issues of slavery and racial inequality. At the time, Whitman’s poetry was revolutionary with transcendental themes. In an effort to resist the reduction of ourselves into rational beings, Whitman’s work highlights the beautiful and divine aspects of humanity and humanity’s relationship to nature.

In the first stanza of his first poem he writes, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself…For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” This line represents the essence of Whitman’s message about human nature and the world around us: we are all connected. He celebrates himself as a part of the natural world, not separate from it, and encourages his reader to do the same. We all share the same world and history and therefore should rejoice in our similarities, rather than criticize our differences. “The smoke of my own breath / Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch, and vine,” he writes. All that is private and made to be shameful should actually be embraced. Whitman wants the reader to undergo a shift in their understanding of themselves. The seeming disgraceful and private parts of bodies and our lives are beautiful and should be appreciated. By evaluating and understanding the world around us we can build a stronger respect and symbiotic relationship with ourselves, each other, and with nature.

Although written over one hundred years ago, “Song of Myself” is still a relevant response to the contemporary world today. Fascinated with the simple and the natural, Whitman encourages his readers to turn away from rationality. Distance from nature is a problematic theme the modern world is still grappling with. By speaking of grass and blood and wood and the atmosphere, the reader is reminded of the everyday beauties of nature that are often taken for granted. Today, more than ever, there is so much hate in our world. We are tied to arbitrary identities that divide us over issues of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and nationality. As a population we are quickly destroying our earth. Industry is depleting faster than our earth can replenish and we are producing at a rate much higher than we can demolish. Modern technology has caused us to become dependent on artificial interaction and various forms of social media, abandoning each other and our natural world.

The significance of Whitman’s poetry remains appropriate to readers today. We have lost touch with each other and with the world around us and need to be reminded of simplicity and human kindness. Poem 2 states, “You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books.” Whitman would encourage us to live in the moment and experience the world for ourselves. He ends the sixth poem by stating, “All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,”. This sends the message that we are all related and should exist interdependently, not in conflict. If we, as a human population and as a industrialized nation, slow down, we can improve our relationships with nature, each other, and ourselves and better see the beauty around us.