ZNote
Walt Whitman's poetry, especially in a cynical and ever-looming-terror 2026, carries with it so much raw energy and passion for the universe that it feels foreign to an American. Through Whitman's eyes we see a romantic soul who saw every "leave of grass" as a friend waiting to be made, each person a part of the continuum of the home he loved, and the simultaneous celebration and disintegration of the body such that it could assume new forms with each interaction, breath, and sensation. Naturally, we cannot be blind to the horrors of America that existed at the time of his writing (and since), however, decades before James Truslow Adams articulated the American Dream in his Epic of America, Whitman was the one who came the closest to seeing what it looked like through the power of the word. His was an America worth living in, a vision that, for all the progress made since, is still light-years away. But perhaps more than anything, Whitman's complete poems are a testament to the belief in the spirit's ability to make peace with what it calls its tangible worldly home. If a better world is waiting on the other side of the morning, we must make it ourselves, with joy and love.
I believe it when he wrote, "For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."
~Song of Myself
Walt Whitman's poetry, especially in a cynical and ever-looming-terror 2026, carries with it so much raw energy and passion for the universe that it feels foreign to an American. Through Whitman's eyes we see a romantic soul who saw every "leave of grass" as a friend waiting to be made, each person a part of the continuum of the home he loved, and the simultaneous celebration and disintegration of the body such that it could assume new forms with each interaction, breath, and sensation. Naturally, we cannot be blind to the horrors of America that existed at the time of his writing (and since), however, decades before James Truslow Adams articulated the American Dream in his Epic of America, Whitman was the one who came the closest to seeing what it looked like through the power of the word. His was an America worth living in, a vision that, for all the progress made since, is still light-years away. But perhaps more than anything, Whitman's complete poems are a testament to the belief in the spirit's ability to make peace with what it calls its tangible worldly home. If a better world is waiting on the other side of the morning, we must make it ourselves, with joy and love.
I believe it when he wrote, "For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."
~Song of Myself