G.A.R. Memorial Library (West Newbury)

What is the grass, Walt Whitman in my life, Mark Doty

eng

contains biographical information

illustrations

no index present

non fiction

What is the grass

1102469462

Mark Doty

Walt Whitman in my life

"Effortlessly blending biography, criticism, and memoir, National Book Award-winning poet and best- selling memoirist Mark Doty explores his personal quest for Walt Whitman. Mark Doty has always felt haunted by Walt Whitman's bold, new American voice, and by his equally radical claims about body and soul and what it means to be a self. In What Is the Grass, Doty-a poet, a lover of men, a New Yorker, and an American-keeps company with Whitman and his mutable, landmark work, Leaves of Grass, tracing the resonances between his own experience and the legendary poet's life and work. What is it, then, between us? Whitman asks. Doty's answer is to explore spaces tied to Whitman's life and spaces where he finds the poet's ghost, meditating on desire, love, and the mysterious wellsprings of the poet's enduring work. How does a voice survive death? What Is the Grass is a conversation across time and space, a study of the astonishment one poet finds in the accomplishment of another, and an attempt to grasp Whitman's deeply hopeful vision of humanity"--, Provided by publisher

Preface: apparition -- The first source. On the extremest verge ; Nothing that has ceased to arrive ; Every atom ; The elderhand ; Luckier -- The second source. The unwriteable ; (Is it night? Are we here alone?) ; Buds folded beneath speech ; Done with the compass ; The old old poem Walt ; Bijou ; Insatiable ; A loving bedfellow -- The third source. I loved well those cities -- The fourth source. Stucco'd with quadrupeds and birds all over -- The fifth source. Demon or bird ; The strong and delicious word ; What is it then between us?