song of myself

part 1 SPOILER AlertBook Review of Walt Whitmans SONG OF MYSELF published 1855
told in 52 cantos and this report its going to spoil some of them.

This is what I liked about canto 1,,,,,,,dude said he was 37 years old and in perfect health. I liked that line because now a days, some bodies were shot long before we reached 37, and some of us didn't even make it to 37.

in number 2 he seems to have gotten naked In the woods by the bank and put perfume on his body. I couldn't tell if he was alone, or if perfume was code word for woman like somebody else in the room thought he meant. ...but It is called song of myself. it talso alked about the origin of all poems, and liked that line

in number 3 the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end, but he didnt talk like that

In #4 he said he was surrounded by trippers

##5 said........And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers,

h#6 and #7 #8 were disturbingly touching,

here is a direct quote from #6
I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.

and one from #7 direct quote
For me those that have been boys and that love women,
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,

#8 direct quote
The suicide sprawls on the bloody floor of the bedroom,
I witness the corpse with its dabbled hair, I note where the pistol has fallen.

#10 is about a marriage between a trapper dressed in skins, and a girl with long dreads...whose dad was wearing moccassins on feet and blankets on his shoulder also mentions a runaway slave

here's a direct quote from canto 11
The malform’d limbs are tied to the surgeon’s table,
What is removed drops horribly in a pail;
The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods by the bar-room stove,

The one-year wife is recovering ...........
The clean-hair’d Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in the factory or mill,


this is the entire first stanza of canto 19
This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger,
It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous, I make appointments with all,
I will not have a single person slighted or left away,
The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited,
The heavy-lipp’d slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;
There shall be no difference between them and the rest.

in 21
"And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man, "
also mentions liquid trees

I will use his phrase "extoller of hate:
but I think 22 is a confession
I am not the poet of goodness only, I do not decline to be the poet of wickedness also.

What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?
Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent,

I love when I find a new word, I mean an uncommon word I had to look up - imbuing because he used it here.

I accept Reality and dare not question it,
Materialism first and last imbuing.

also had to look up lexicographer   

alalso  had to look up...neuters and geldings  - which disturbed me greatly

a poem that contains the work armpit and venerealee

what kind of twisted literature is this

#23 closes with And beat the gong of revolt, and stop with fugitives and them that plot and conspire.

looked up afflatus

he said the password is

 primeval,  and the sign democracy

24 containts

Voices of the interminable (looked that one up too)  

 generations of prisoners and slaves,

Voices of the diseas’d and despairing and of thieves and dwarfs,

Voices of cycles of preparation and accretion,

looked up libidinous just to be sure also bravuras also quahaug and pismire


he says the puzzle of puzzles is called being

and said he is the greatest traitor

29 talks about  perpetual payment of perpetual loan,  and later a sextillions of infidels.  and plutonic rocks  then further winter wolves and icicled trees,

start chapter 40