We read Whitman today and I breathed in some good air. We spoke, my students and I, of the yawp that Uncle Walt demands of himself, that we need to sound for ourselves. And I found myself being accused by the spotted hawk. Why, gentle reader? Because I am a gabber and a loiterer.
So was Whitman, so I suppose I am in good company. And he doesn't apologize for it, so I will not, in a vain attempt to stay even. Therefore, I feel released from my own contradictions. After all, it is legal to be many things. We are large, we contain multitudes, and if we do not, well then shame on us. I, for one, wish to carry with me the love of loafing poets shoulder to shoulder with a disgust for general laziness. Can those things calibrate?
How do we draw the line between multitasking and schizophrenia; between varied and fake; between many-layered and evermore-hollow? Do we need to? Across the pond, Wordsworth said that "we murder to dissect" and while I don't disagree with him (heck, I do it all the time!), I don't prefer it. I find no comfort in murdering or dissecting; I find comfort in the yawp.
It sounds like something Beowulf would have done quite well.
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