Customer Reviews (1)

Great scholarship.The best Whitman book.
In this wonderful book we get to know the young men whom Whitman loved, and who loved him, beginning with Fred Vaughan, who inspired the Calamus poems -- the cycle in which Whitman celebrates "manly attachments", "athletic love", and the "dear love of comrades".
Charley Shively has collected and edited letters to and from Whitman and his young, working class lovers, and has provided his own introduction and commentary.Some of the letters are very moving, especially those from Fred Vaughan, in which he describes his life, married and with family, after leaving Whitman.
The book ends with "Bathing My Songs In Sex", Shively's own selection of Whitman's gayest poems.His guiding principles: "Out of all the versions of a poem, I have opted for the most erotic reading; otherwise I've incorporated the version which reads best."The approach works splendidly.We get Whitman's best poems as he really intended them -- not suppressed or
emasculated, either by editors or Whitman himself.(Whitman's revisions were often a form of bowdlerization, in which the poems became progressively less personal and erotic.)
This is an absolutely essential book for every Whitman lover. ... Read more

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"I had a clock it woke all day," writes Jonathan Thirkield at the outset of The Waker's Corridor, a book that charts an assiduous attempt to recover lost time. Housed in elaborate and varied formal architectures, these poems navigate the disorder and gaps left by the violence of loss. All measures of time--psychological, personal, historical, numerical--collide and overlap in intensely lyrical verse. What results is a journey that winds through shifting lands and interiors, across theatrical stages and city streets, into voices and objects that emerge in sudden, vivid relief, and just as quickly disappear. By turns dreamlike and sternly rational, arcane and contemporary, intimate and dramatic, it is a book of blinding, austere, and beautiful awakenings.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

amazing craft
These poems show an amazing degree of craft--they are tight, tight, tight. Thirkield's originality just startles this reader. The poems need to be, deserve to be, savored word by word. If you want to read transparent poems that recapitulate experience (personally, a poet has to be in the Sharon Olds category to make me care about his/her crazy family)find something else.If you want poetry to be an experience, this one's a ten.

Falling Asleep in the Waker's Corridor
This book disappoints extremely. The only reason I've given it three stars is that upon future rereadings, it might turn out to be good. But I've read the whole book twice and the poems fall flat. There are occassional great phrases and interesting uses of fragmentation, but overall the poems are obscure and don't surprise. Transparency is incredibly important--we readers need to know what's going on. That doesn't mean the poems have to be simple. But the poems should be able to recognize themselves in the mirror. You would think he would be able to allow this to happen--his byline is impressive (MFA from Iowa's Writer's Workshop as a Truman Capote Fellow). But Linda Bierds' note from her judge's citation is laughable; "A luminous book, one that marks the emergence of a major new voice in American poetry." If so, I don't think I'll be reading much of contemporary American poetry.


I hope he does better next time. ... Read more

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Recovers Whitman as a self-conscious religious figure with an ethic based in male comradeship, one at odds with the temper of his times. ... Read more

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In this book, critic James Olney explores the work of three seemingly disparate precursors of modernism - Whitman, Dickinson and Hopkins - and establishes a set of criteria by which any reader might judge and better appreciate a poem. Considering the language of the poets' times, their unique ways with language, and what he calls the "nearly historical language" of poetry, Olney arrives at three properties that form a kind of common ground in poetry, regardless of the cultural context of the era in which a poem is written. These properties are a heightened rhythmisation of language, an elevated figurativity of language, and a highly personal, distinctive eccentricity that shapes both the poetic vision and the technical means used to express it. In three chapters, each focusing on one of these properties, Olney shows how three poets shaped these elements in distinctive ways. "Dickinsonian" verse, he notes, displays a metrical regularity reminiscent of hymns. It is also a thoroughly metaphorical poetry that works through figures of similarity and resemblance, and it reveals an unmistakable economy and a "darting quicksilver" elusiveness.Whitman's highly rhythmic, but entirely nonmetrical, poetry is dominated by figures of correlation and connection. His verse, pervaded by an insatiate desire to annex the human world and universe to himself, has a sense of being never-ending. Hopkins's poems are markedly rhythmic and even metrical, but not according to any traditional or inherited system of metrics. Figuratively mixed, they are highly wrought poems that observe the strictest formalities in order to subjugate unruly and explosive emotions. Throughout his discussions, Olney quotes extensively from the poetry of all three figures and also conveys much about the effect of their personal lives on their work. In plain terms that neither obfuscate nor overshadow his subjects, Olney helps us to understand better the ways in which poets defamiliarise our world and make us see it anew. ... Read more

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Originally published in 1883. This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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Great Reproduction
I've been doing some research on Whitman, and this is one of those books that originally had a pretty short print run so is hard to find and if you do find it, costs a small fortune. So I was quite pleased to find that BiblioBazaar brought it back into print, and at a reasonable price at that! ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (5)

WONDERFUL LITTLE VOLUME - SIMPLY THE BEST!
It is possible that Walt Whitman is the best poet this country has turned out so far.Of course this could be debated and what it really comes down to is individual reader taste.In my personal opinion, he is the best, but then his work pleases me and I have yet to read a poem or a bit of his prose that I did not enjoy and learn from. Other poets please me too, but Whitman's work somehow touches me like no other. Others may differ of course, but that is okay and as it should be.

This little bit of a book is from the Dover Thrifty Edition collection an concentrates on Whitman's writing during and after the Civil War and of course addresses the war, both directly and indirectly.Many of the selections here have been taken from Leaves of Grass, but the editors have gleaned through Whitman's other works and put this wonderful collection together; the central subject being the Civil War.As has been pointed out by other reviewers, we have a very nice and well done selection of the poets work in the first half of the book with poems such as Dirge for Two Veterans, Look down Fair moon, O Captain! My Captain (of course), Camps of Green along with twenty five other Civil War poems.The second half of the book contains a number of letters to friends and relatives and bits of this and than concerning the poet's view of the war and his experiences.It must be noted that both Whitman and his family were quite involved in this conflict and he and his entire family were quite vested in its process.

Often times, the modern reader does not realize just how this war impacted Whitman.He basically spent the war working at military hospitals and directly with the troops.In this poetry we find some of his most sensitive work; sad, so very sad, but at the same time sad on a rather positive note.Whiteman always leaves us with hope.After reading this gathering of words, we find an ingenuous strength and conviction in all of his work; so strong that it touches and stays.

I have long felt (and this is a personal opinion) that the Civil War was the absolute defining moment and event in our countries history; upstaging even the Revolutionary War (If you think about it, just about any country with a few really hacked off people and a few guns can pull off a pretty decent revolution...it happens everyday around the world).To understand our country and her people and her way of life, you must understand the many aspects of the Civil War. We learn where we came from and why we are the way we are today. Through the words of such men as Whitman, we can gain in that understanding.

This is a nice cheap little book; costing very little, but it is oh so powerful.It is a delight to have this small paperback edition lying around to read a bit here and there.

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

Even in the midst of great brutality, there can be kindness, compassion and the writing of great poetry
Walt Whitman is of course well known as a poet of the middle nineteenth century. His poem "Leaves of Grass" should be required reading for all American high school students. However, one almost unknown fact of his life is that he was a staunch Unionist during the American Civil War and he toured some of the battlefields after the fighting has stopped. He did what he could to comfort and nurse the wounded and the poems in this book describe his experiences. It also contains some letters he wrote to his relatives, in particular his search for his wounded brother George.
Whitman shows great compassion in his writing, even to the wounded soldiers of the Confederacy. He befriends some of them and from his descriptions of his ministrations to the soldiers; it is easy to see how he could be labeled as having homosexual tendencies. However, those passages must be read in the context of the time and place, the men he is with are severely wounded and in some cases dying, so expressions of affection on his part must be interpreted in that context. The only time he expresses hatred towards the Confederate troops is when he encounters the emaciated Union prisoners that were recently freed from Confederate POW camps.
Even in the midst of great brutality, there can be kindness, compassion and the writing of great poetry. As this collection demonstrates, Whitman was simultaneously capable of all three.

Solemn, saddening, but also uplifting
"This dust was once the man,
Gentle, plain, just and resolute, under whose cautious hand,
Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age,
Was saved the Union of these States."

Solemn, saddening, but also uplifting.Unedited; adds to the character of the time.

The first half of the book contains short and long poems.The poems come from his observations during the civil war. He begins with the splendor in the taking up of arms.His heart changes as he follows along with the troops on to the battlefields of death.He frequents the hospitals, and helps tend to the wounded.

The second half of the book contains thoughts on death, the living quarters, Lincoln's murder, atrocities, and the prisons.He spends many hours consoling and conversing with the wounded and writing to their families.The book ends with misc. letters to his mother and acquaintances.

Wish you well
Scott

"[. . .] done with tenderness, and done well."
"Civil War Poetry and Prose," by Walt Whitman, is part of the Dover Thrift Editions series.Most of the poems are taken from the 1891-92 edition of Whitman's monumental "Leaves of Grass."The prose selections consist of two parts: journal entries taken from Whitman's "Memoranda During the War," and a selection of Whitman's letters.The book also includes a brief introductory note (pp. iii-iv) that discusses Whitman's experiences tending to hospitalized soldiers during the U.S. Civil War.

Being familiar with Whitman's poetry from other editions, I was especially fascinated by the prose selections in this volume.In these prose passages Whitman writes vividly of his encounters with sick and wounded soldiers.He seemed to have really had a life-changing experience tending to these men; in one letter he declares that these soldiers "open a new world somehow to me, giving closer insights, new things, exploring deeper mines."Whitman includes some graphic accounts of the wounds and suffering endured by the troops, and very moving descriptions of his comradeship with them.He also discusses other subjects, such as wartime atrocities, female wartime nurses, his love of the opera, and his own writing.Whitman also shares his impressions of and admiration for President Lincoln.

The poetry complements these powerful prose selections well.Overall, this collection demonstrates Whitman's compassion, his sweeping vision, and his descriptive skill.In one of the selections Whitman declares of a medical operation, "I thought the whole thing was done with tenderness, and done well"; I will say the same of the writings in this fine book.

I think he is a genious!
I think that Walt Whitman was a genious at what he did. He is one of my most favorite poets/writers/essayists. Besides a few others such as Poe. But I truely believe that he was on the right path in life, doesn't he show it in his work? ... Read more

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From the great events of the day to the patient workings of a spider, few poets responded to the life around them as powerfully as Walt Whitman. Now, in this brief but bountiful volume, David S. Reynolds offers a wealth of insight into the life and work of Whitman, examining the author through the lens of nineteenth-century America. Reynolds shows how Whitman responded to contemporary theater, music, painting, photography, science, religion, and sex. But perhaps nothing influenced Whitman more than the political events of his lifetime, as the struggle over slavery threatened to rip apart the national fabric. America, he believed, desperately needed a poet to hold together a society that was on the verge of unraveling. He created his powerful, all-absorbing poetic "I" to heal a fragmented nation that, he hoped, would find in his poetry new possibilities for inspiration and togetherness. Reynolds also examines the influence of theater, describing how Whitman's favorite actor, the tragedian Junius Brutus Booth--"one of the grandest revelations of my life"--developed a powerfully emotive stage style that influenced Leaves of Grass, which took passionate poetic expression to new heights. Readers will also discover how from the new medium of photography Whitman learned democratic realism and offered in his poetry "photographs" of common people engaged in everyday activities. Reynolds concludes with an appraisal of Whitman's impact on American letters, an influence that remains strong today. Solidly grounded in historical and biographical facts, and exceptionally wide-ranging in the themes it treats, Walt Whitman packs a dazzling amount of insight into a compact volume. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An Introduction to Walt Whitman
This year, 2005, marks the 150th anniversary of the first publication of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass", the most influential work of poetry yet written in the United States. The event has been appropriately marked by new editions of Whitman, new studies, and by many conferences and celebrations to explore Whitman's legacy.

But the most fitting way to celebrate Whitman is to read or to reread him.David Reynolds's short biography, "Walt Whitman" (2005) breaks no new ground about its subject.Instead, in 154 pages it introduces the reader to the main facts of Whitman's life and to the many themes that appear in his poetry and prose works.It is a good introduction for those readers wishing some background before beginning a study of Whitman.David Reynolds is Distinguished Professor of English and American Studies at Baruch College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.This book is largely a distillation of Professor Reynolds's longer study "Walt Whitman's America: A Cultural Biography" (1995).

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) had little formal education.He held a variety of jobs as a newspaper editor and writer before publishing his masterpiece, the first edition of "Leaves of Grass" in 1855.This work set forth a vision of a United States based upon pluralism, egalitarianism, a kind of secularized and ecumenical mysticism, and acceptance of one's sexuality that many readers, myself included, still find deeply inspiring.Whitman largely fulfilled the goal he set himself of setting forth the ideals of the United States in poetic form.The free verse he developed in "Leaves of Grass" changed dramatically the structure and technique of subsequent poetry.

Professor Reynolds's study opens with a brief chapter on Whitman's life.The remaining six chapters of the book discuss themes and influences important to Whitman and to the understanding of his work.Professor Reynolds offers vivid but brief pictures of the New York City of Whitman's day, of Whitman's interest in oratory, the theater, and music, both popular and classical.Professor Reynolds describes Whitman's interest in the new medium of photography and in art.There is a discussion of Whitman's religious and philosophical views and of his dream of a secular, ecumenical, yet personal faith.We see Whitman's interests in phrenology, spiritualism, and, later in life, in the religions of the East.There is a chapter on Whitman's attitudes towards sexuality -- a subject much explored which receives only a limited treatment here -- and a chapter on Whitman's reverence for Lincoln and on his services during the Civil War as a nurse.The themes of each chapter are illustrated with appropriate short quotations from Whitman's prose and poetry.

I think Whitman's importance lies in his poetic expression of the democratic ideal, his commitment to nonsectarian religion, and to his recognition of the force of sexuality in human life which, interestingly, Whitman thought formed one of the bases of democracy.The Nobel-Prize winning author J.M. Coetzee has recently written that "the most attractive feature of Whitman's dreamed-of United States is that it does not demand of its citizens the sublimation of eros in the interest of the state." (New York Review, September 22, 2005, p. 22)Reynolds's book will introduce the reader to these aspects of Whitman's work.

Reynolds's book will have served its purpose if in encourages readers to visit or revisit Whitman.For those readers wanting to do so, I recommend the outstanding edition of Whitman's poetry and major prose works in the Library of America series.

Robin Friedman

An excellent introduction
Picking up David S. Reynolds' WALT WHITMAN armed with almost total ignorance of the poet, I was satisfied in finishing that I had gained a good grounding in Whitman's life, times, and work. The first chapter, a brief biography, lays the foundation for those that follow on Whitman's art and his response to, among other things, war, sex, and science. Annoyingly there are four typographical errors within its 138 pages of text, but WALT WHITMAN nevertheless succeeds marvelously in providing scholarly content to the generalist in a crisp, well-organized style. ... Read more

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An anthology of free-verse poetry that examines the tragedies of war and conflict
National and international award-winning poet Jude Nutter presents I Wish I Had A Heart Like Yours, Walt Whitman, an anthology of free-verse poetry that examines the tragedies of war and conflict. Nutter takes a different view of such things than legendary poet Walt Whitman; her verse sings with a heavy heart as she disagrees with him, drawing upon the suffering that has taken place in Rwando, Sarajevo, Nagasaki, and both world wars. Nutter also rebuts Whitman's belief that animals are placid, self-contained, and guiltless; through a series of animal poems, Nutter points to the terrible violence and tragedy that affects the natural lives of animals. A compelling and thought-provoking collection, highly recommended. "Look No Further": "It doesn't matter how little we are given - / watches, belt buckles, splinters of bone. Imagine / the discipline it must take to recognize, / when they have spent years in the ground, the teeth // of someone you love. It should / make us grateful to know it is possible / to love with such attention. Imagine the safe, / banked taste of the soil; even the ghost of the body long / gone now inside the earth's dark bag."

Amazing
Jude Nutter's third full-length collection is a revelation. Somehow she manages to be both intimate and expansive, often in the same poem. Taking on the themes of war and loss, of love both romantic and familial, of the natural and animal worlds, Nutter takes in everything with a sharp, unflinching, and compassionate eye. I guarantee these poems will stay with you long after you read them. These poems are truly alive, and this book is nothing short of a gift. ... Read more

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Walt Whitman looked to many different areas of American culture to develop a distinctively American poetry. This book investigates four of the areas he found most fertile for his own poetic development: the evolution of American dictionaries, the growth of the national sport of baseball, the decimation of American Indians, and the development of American photography. From each of these cultural activities, Whitman absorbed key aesthetic lessons that helped him compose his poetry. ... Read more

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Hooray for Walt Whitman
Hooray for Walt Whitman! Hooray that he found such an interpreter as Ed Folsom.Through a historical exploration of American dictionaries (words, words, words), baseball, American Indians and photography, Ed Folsom demonstrates how Walt Whitman makes American democracy his own in Leaves of Grass.Through five such studies, he helps the reader deepen his understanding of Walt Whitman's art.One sees Walth Whitman as a dictionary reader who sifts through the meaning of words as a geologist does through layers of soil. In the chapter on baseball, one sees how America's game was Walt Whitman's and how Walt reacts to its professionalism.In the chapter on American Indians, we see how Walt Whitman's poetry reflects his ambivalence about Native Americans who were displaced physically as a result of American progress in the nineteenth century.In his last two chapters, Ed Folsom shows how Walt Whitman adopts the use of photography.Walt Whitman is probably one of the first persons who documented his life in photos.We learn about photography in its infancy.We see what we take as familiar was unfamiliar and how it captured the imagination since a photograph was democratic, capturing an entire image rather than the image the painter painted.We see how it opens up memory since it captured a moment of the past.

Ed Folsom brings it all alive.He writes clearly and lively.His love of Whitman is clearly infectious.A great book about a great American poet. ... Read more

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General Series Editors: Gay Wilson Allen and Sculley Bradley

Originally published between 1961 and 1984, and now available in paperback for the first time, the critically acclaimed Collected Writings of Walt Whitman captures every facet of one of America's most important poets.

Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts gathers Whitman's autobiographical notes, his views on contemporary politics, and the writings he made as he educated himself in ancient history, religion and mythology, health (including phrenology), and word-study. Included is material on his Civil War experiences, his love of Abraham Lincoln, his descriptions of various trips to the West and South and of the cities in which he resided, his generally pessimistic view of America's prospects in the Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, and his reminiscences during his final years and his preoccupation with the increasing ailments that came with old age. Many of these notes served as sources for his poetry—first drafts of some of the poems are included as they appear in the notes—and as the basis for his lectures.

Customer Reviews (1)

A great tool for teaching
As an instructor of literature, it is impossible to omit Walt Whitman's poetry from my syllabus; he is just too important. It's easy for me to select which poems to discuss. The hard part is HOW to teach them to a group of students who might struggle with Whitman's language and form. Donald Kummings' "Approaches to Teaching Whitman's Leaves of Grass" is a valuable tool in fixing this problem. The book begins with some general approaches to Whitman, including some required and recommended readings. After that, however, come a collection of essays by scholars who have struggled with the same issue of teaching Whitman. The writers range from Kenneth Price to Susan Day Dean. Each essay is brilliant, each approach is easy to use. I have notes squeezed into the margins of each essay, and I consult them each time I teach LEAVES OF GRASS. I am extremely grateful to Mr. Kummings' effort!

Rocco Dormarunno
College of New Rochelle ... Read more