You're reading Song of Myself today in observance, right?
>>25383254it’s very long, but maybe I’ll start it later tonight
>>25385254well I’ve read the first 20 of 52 parts and I like it so far. he’s pretty gay but I like how much of a survey of america it feels. reminds me in some ways of thoreau and even steinbeck. idk if I’ll finish it tonight or tomorrow, but I’ll report back when I’ve read some more.
>>25386425I finished it and really enjoyed it. the scope was about as epic as any poem could be, and the whole “I sing of myself” thing turned out not to be some kind of fedora-tipping bs but actually quite spiritual. thanks for the rec OP
>>25383254>I love my wrinkly old balls that look like the stormy sea>I love everyone and everything>including the poop flies, men and meno
>>25383254I read Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography and, against my Expectations, enjoy'd it greatly.
>>25386599>capitalized nounsholy...
>>25385254>>25386425>>25386558Very happy you enjoyed it. Be sure to check out>Crossing Brooklyn Ferry>When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'd>The Sleepers
>>25387214>Crossing Brooklyn Ferryit’s basically impossible to read him and not understand why he’s considered the quintessential american poet. he’s basically just documenting in verse the whole geography and society in which he lives. I like when he just lists off everything he sees and builds an atmosphere for the reader, but I don’t really like when he repeats himself a lot like >Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and south-westward,>Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,will definitely read the other two as well.
Brain of the New World, what a task is thine,To formulate the Modern—out of the peerless grandeur of the modern,Out of thyself, comprising science, to recast poems, churches, art,(Recast, maybe discard them, end them—maybe their work is done, who knows?)By vision, hand, conception, on the background of the mighty past, the dead,To limn with absolute faith the mighty living present.And yet thou living present brain, heir of the dead, the Old World brain,Thou that lay folded like an unborn babe within its folds so long,Thou carefully prepared by it so long—haply thou but unfoldest it, only maturest it,It to eventuate in thee—the essence of the by-gone time contain'd in thee,Its poems, churches, arts, unwitting to themselves, destined with reference to thee;Thou but the apples, long, long, long a-growing,The fruit of all the Old ripening to-day in thee.
Nay, do not dream, designer dark,Thou hast portrayed or hit thy theme entire;I, hoverer of late by this dark valley, by its confines, having glimpses of it,Here enter lists with thee, claiming my right to make a symbol too.For I have seen many wounded soldiers die,After dread suffering—have seen their lives pass off with smiles;And I have watch'd the death-hours of the old; and seen the infant die;The rich, with all his nurses and his doctors;And then the poor, in meagerness and poverty;And I myself for long, O Death, have breath'd my every breathAmid the nearness and the silent thought of thee.And out of these and thee,I make a scene, a song (not fear of thee,Nor gloom's ravines, nor bleak, nor dark—for I do not fear thee,Nor celebrate the struggle, or contortion, or hard-tied knot,Of the broad blessed light and perfect air, with meadows, rippling tides, and trees and flowers and grass,And the low hum of living breeze—and in the midst God's beautiful eternal right hand,Thee, holiest minister of Heaven—thee, envoy, usherer, guide at last of all,Rich, florid, loosener of the stricture-knot call'd life,Sweet, peaceful, welcome Death.
>>25387214>When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom'dsad one. seems kind of uncharacteristic for him but I haven’t read that much of his work. I liked it a lot. also this part>I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war,>But I saw they were not as was thought,>They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer’d not,>The living remain’d and suffer’d, the mother suffer’d,made me kek thinking about that infamous hilary clinton quote about women and children being the primary victims of war. although I think he meant it differently, in that the suffering of the dead has ended.
>>25387214>The Sleepersmaybe my least favorite of the ones I’ve read, but not because it’s bad at all. I enjoyed it. it just seemed very similar to song of myself but less ambitious.
I also read O Captain My Captain and it’s a huge departure from all the others I’ve read and not just because it rhymes but also because of the specificity of the subject. I really liked it though. I think I like poems that rhyme better than those that don’t, generally speaking.
