"Bukowski has affirmed the call, Walt Whitman made for a clear, articulate voice [...] Bukowski's own insistence that a poem be devoid of tricks, that it not be in line with a standardized literary tradition, is precisely the same note that Whitman struck in the preface to 'Leaves of Grass' [...] He [Bukowski] often spoke of Whitman as the one who opened the door to a freer style and to an unabashed sense of selfness in the poem."
(Neeli Cherry in: 'Whitman's Wild Children')
"The greatest poet hardly knows pettiness or triviality. If he breathes into any thing that was before thought small it dilates with grandeur and life of the universe [... ] He is not one of the chorus. [...] The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of light of letters is simplicity. [...] I will not be meddlesome, I will not have in my writing any elegance or effect or originality to hang in the way between me and the rest like curtains. I will have nothing hang in the way, not the richest curtains. What I tell I tell for precisely what it is. [...] The cleanest expression is that which finds no sphere worthy of itself and makes one."
(Walt Whitman from preface to 'Leaves of Grass', 1st ed. 1855)
"O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!"
(WW: 'One hour of Madness and Joy)
"From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute."
(WW: 'Song of the Open Road')
"It is not enough to have This globe or a certain time,
I will have Thousands of globes and All time. [...]
O while I live to be a ruler of live, not a slave [...]
And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me."
(WW: 'A Song of Joys')
"I have sung the body and the soul,
war and peace have I sung,
and the songs of life and death.
And the songs of birth, and shown that there are many births."
(WW: 'So long')
... now Your turn!
(Neeli Cherry in: 'Whitman's Wild Children')
"The greatest poet hardly knows pettiness or triviality. If he breathes into any thing that was before thought small it dilates with grandeur and life of the universe [... ] He is not one of the chorus. [...] The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of light of letters is simplicity. [...] I will not be meddlesome, I will not have in my writing any elegance or effect or originality to hang in the way between me and the rest like curtains. I will have nothing hang in the way, not the richest curtains. What I tell I tell for precisely what it is. [...] The cleanest expression is that which finds no sphere worthy of itself and makes one."
(Walt Whitman from preface to 'Leaves of Grass', 1st ed. 1855)
"O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!"
(WW: 'One hour of Madness and Joy)
"From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute."
(WW: 'Song of the Open Road')
"It is not enough to have This globe or a certain time,
I will have Thousands of globes and All time. [...]
O while I live to be a ruler of live, not a slave [...]
And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me."
(WW: 'A Song of Joys')
"I have sung the body and the soul,
war and peace have I sung,
and the songs of life and death.
And the songs of birth, and shown that there are many births."
(WW: 'So long')
... now Your turn!
