
“I have let Whitman alone” - mstats
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/04/18/walt-whitman-alone/
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Waterluvian
> “I celebrate myself,/And what I assume you shall assume,/For every atom
> belonging to me as good belongs to you.” Whitman was unequivocally declaring
> his own independence from poetic conventions and niceties.

This is why I always struggle communicating in the arts. This author speaks
with such conviction that she understands Whitman's intent and yet I can't
find a shred of it for myself.

~~~
mturmon
That's the opening stanza from _Leaves of Grass_ , the Ur-text of American
poetry. The opening stanza doesn't convey Whitman's break with convention
fully, but it stands in for the rest, which does. And certainly these lines --
self-celebratory, all-encompassing, without conventional rhyme or meter --
convey an expression of independence!

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swamp40
Why can't I find any stories of that time Mark Twain and Walt Whitman tried to
dig up the grave of Elias Hicks to make a plaster cast of his head? Is there a
conspiracy of silence going on here? What good is the internet if not for
tracking down obscure details of events like this?

~~~
defen
That was Samuel E. Clements, not Samuel L. Clemens, and Whitman wasn't
involved; he was just an apprentice for Clements at the newspaper Clements
edited.

Clements did succeed at digging up the grave, but apparently the mold and
busts were destroyed during an argument over money.

Source: _Walt Whitman 's America: A Cultural Biography_ by David Reynolds

~~~
swamp40
Ahh, I see. Well that certainly explains things. Thanks!

