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Walt Whitman: More Than A War Poet (Part One)

© Audrey McCrone

One cannot consider Whitman only a war poet, which fails to note his rigid individualism, as I find more characteristic of our time, rather than his. As a student, I understand the time period Walt Whitman lived in as restrictive and devoutly religious. What kind of audience welcomed Whitman's sometimes outrageous self-love (a concept so foreign to those of his own era)? Mid-Victorian people rather gasped at his sometimes belching manner and explicit sexuality. Language of poetry changed because of Whitman, who chose free verse as to reflect the freedoms we hold dear, as Americans.

He is "the poet of the woman the same as the man," and endears all of mankind (which now also infers women). I have to say I enjoy his admiration and sensitivity toward female readers, such as me. A man who values the process of procreation as ultimately holy, he tickles my intellect with his understanding and desire for female intimacy, forcing me to understand him better. To propagate, per Whitman, is the ultimate act of self-actualization. To see another person's face reflecting our own provides all the proof one needs that God exists. God is mentioned in Whitman's poetry, though not as often as "Body" and "Soul," which are both noted numerously.

A thread of humanity binds everyone, though writing is to catalogue the life which surrounds us, as we snap visual images into verse, including all senses and sensualities surrounding both Body and Soul. As a writer, I tend to define myself in terms similar to my predecessors, certainly, but feel rather more sexual even than Whitman. We mutate the moral sense of our country, which continually changes: not for better nor worse, but as to define us in our time, as we perceive. I can attest that birth/death cycles can attain for us, at least, understanding behind questions as to 'why?' in many cases. I agree that having a child can be self-actualizing.

Whitman wrote for future generations to maintain hope and to know good and evil existed then and now. All we know is now and we must take on its causes, its images, and our senses, reactions and attitudes on life, as writers. Whitman felt restricted, in his time, on the subject of sexuality in America. "O unspeakable passionate love." (as taken from poem 21 of Song of Myself) This seems what he made strides against, while we are now encouraged to be politically correct.

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