The Art of Wonder

A Brown University/Rhode Island School of Design Dual-Degree student (BRDD, 2017), artist, writer, scientist, and explorer of the world dedicated to finding Wondrous things. Art, design, science, literature and the connections between them. For my original artwork see http://arianamakesart.tumblr.com/

Posts tagged Walt Whitman

May 31

Happy Birthday, Uncle Walt.

(via poetsorg)

poetsorg:

<3 WW

Aug 21

poetsorg:

Which one’s the real Walt Whitman?

Jul 31

“WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.” Walt Whitman, lamenting a failure of scientific communication.

Jul 26

nypl:

Walt Whitman manuscript, “Go, said his soul to a poet.”

The manuscript is comprised of two unequal-sized sheets of paper pasted together. Note in ink in Whitman’s hand running along upper left says: “Scrap of Rough Draft / W Whitman.” Additional note in Whitman’s hand written in red ink along seam where the two sheets are joined: “inscription on title page last edition Leaves of Grass.”

From the Berg Collection of English and American Literature.

(via poetsorg)

Jul 18

poetsorg:

Levi’s ad quoting Walt Whitman

I don’t know how I feel about this. On the one hand, I love Walt Whitman so much that I can’t resist loving anything in which he is featured. On the other hand, I don’t know how I feel about using Whitman’s words (which are so full and large and encompassing, which mean so much more than blue jeans, which speak of souls and hearts and the American identity) to sell blue jeans. I get what Levi’s wants us to feel: they want us to equate their brand with the American identity and, to do that, they’ve employed the words of the man who knew the soul of America best. I am struggling with whether it is a fair thing for a brand to do. Maybe no one else cares. Maybe few people are as affected by Whitman as I am. I am sure many people would say that the American identity is up for grabs, open to any individual or company to claim and to shape. I can’t say that I disagree with any of these view points in their entirety. I do feel, however, that Whitman should have been given credit. Just a thought.

Jul 2

(via cardboardcameraobscura)

Jun 30

“Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me.” Walt Whitman (source: writeletters-dearyou, via jesseharding)

(via vagabondsun-deactivated20120821)

Jun 29

2headedsnake:

akirabeard.com

Akira Beard, Walt Whitman II- watercolor on paper 5.5”x 8.5” (2010)

(via stunninglymonochrome)

Jun 28

Walt Whitman Appreciation

This summer, I have made it my goal to read both the original and “death-bed” editions of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass in their entirety and to study them deeply. I have done this with only one Whitman poem (arguably Whitman’s most famous), “Song of Myself”. This sublime treatise details the power of Nature, of People, of the American Spirt, of Work, of Suffering, of Joy, and of the Self. It is written in plain, honest language and can be read and understood on different levels by all people. “Song of Myself” transcends history, class, and culture, and speaks on a level more universal and primeval than all of these. Although I have casually read many of the other poems in Leaves of Grass, “Song of Myself” has been the only one I’ve delved into and from which I’ve gained true understanding.

Last year, as part of a school assignment, I spent about two months with “Song of Myself”, taking it apart and putting it back together in the context of American history and Whitman’s personal narrative, and finally, in the context of my own life and understanding of the world. From that point on, Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” became, for me, a kind of sacred text. I gained and continue to gain from “Song of Myself” what people of faith gain from the holy books of their faiths: guidance, comfort, resolve, solace, mystery, visions of the past, present, future. I subscribe to no faith and do not mean to say I have become a disciple of sorts of Walt Whitman. I mean only to say that I know, from personal experience, that written words (even those which are not divinely inspired) have the power to transform and enrich one’s life.

Now I wish to expand that transformative experience. In reading the rest of Walt Whitman’s poems the way I read “Song of Myself”, I hope to know more intimately the language Walt Whitman spoke. I wish to understand the conversations Walt Whitman had with the Universe in its own tongue.

“And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.” Walt Whitman, “A Noiseless Patient Spider”, Leaves of Grass: “Death-bed” Edition

“And that my soul embraces you in this hour, and we affect each other without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit as wonderful. ” Walt Whitman, “Who Learns My Lesson Complete”