"'What is it then between us?' Walt Whitman asks in his great poem 'Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.' Well, what is it Mr. Whitman? Was 'Leaves of Grass' just a book of poems, or was it a manifesto of multiculturalism before that notion even existed? Was it a paeon to love and sex and freedom? Was it just some guy's utopian dream of an ideal America, or a blueprint for a real America? A century and a half later, are we ready for the America of Walt Whitman's dreams?"
This excerpt is taken from "Walt Whitman: Song of Myself," a recent WNYC documentary which seeks to answer these questions by teasing out the social, sexual, and political implications of Whitman's landmark collection, "Leaves of Grass." Narrated by Carl Hancock Rux, and featuring commentary by Philip Lopate and Martin Espada, and recitations of Whitman's poetry by Paul Giamatti and Jeffrey Wright, "Song of Myself" portrays a dynamic sketch of The Great Gray Poet.
The commentary returns, as does the poetry, to Whitman's excitable fascination with urban egalitarianism, his robust observations of quotidian street life, his love for the working class, his articulate voyeurism, his deep democratic sympathies. What also emerges from this production is a picture of Whitman as a socio-sexual vanguard who celebrated erotic liberality in a culturally-conservative era. Listening in, we are reminded again and again of the panoramic scope of Whitman's poetic lens. His poetic aim was to "contain multitudes" in his verse. WNYC's well-produced program is alive with a memorable hint of the same expansive, inclusive energy that fires Whitman's electric verse.
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