May 31– Prologue to "Leaves of Grass" by Walt Whitman (1855)

 How about Leaves of Glass?

May 31– Prologue to Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman (1855)

Summary:

Commentary: I think I did joke before, but can we take a minute to appreciate how Whitman has two forms, Dandy and Gandalf?

Dandy above and Gandalf below, courtesy of Wikipedia

    That out of the way, onto the prologue:

I'm going to start by saying that starting you poetry collection with a 13 page prologue is a choice. I think I talked recently about how I read an article about reading intros, prologues, etc. after the book. That seems like a good choice here. How am I supposed to know if I like the poems before I read the poems? I think it'd make sense to put a poem or two before the intro, as like a self-epigraph? I think he did, but hard to tell since I don't have the actually book in front of me.

This is one of the better, "America is great because we're the result of a bunch of other countries coming together" I've read, though it could trim a bit (did we really need a list of 15 different trees followed by another list of animals?) It gets into more of a why than you usually see in this kind of writing. Even if I don't agree with all of his conclusions, he at least explains them, rather than going, "AMERICA GREAT! FUCK YOU! MIC DROP!" like we get so often. 

Like a lot of poets, he does like to ramble about how great poets are. I think he'd have been better saving that for its own essay. We do get a shot at moralizing, at least. Poe and I approve. There's some fair writing advice in here (simplicity and definiteness) but it's kind of lost in the giant unfocused ramble (ironic). I like that there can be multiple SUPREME POETS. That's almost humble.

The American bards shall be marked for generosity and affection and for encouraging competitors: they shall be kosmos—without monopoly or secrecy—glad to pass anything to any one—hungry for equals night and day.

I feel like most artists fall on one extreme or the other: all art is equal and we can't compete, or the art I like/make is perfect and everything else personally offends me. Nice to see some healthy competition.