America - Walt Whitman

Overview

The confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was politically divisive, but Walt Whitman's 19th century wisdom remains timeless. In 1892, the poet wrote in prose: "I have sometimes thought, indeed, that the sole avenue and means of a reconstructed sociology depended, primarily, on a new birth, elevation, expansion, invigoration of woman." Towards the end of his life in 1888, he added "America" to his collection "Leaves of Grass," and then recited four lines from the poem, onto a wax cylinder recording, before he died (it is the only record of his voice in existence): "Centre of equal daughters, equal sons, All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old, Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich, Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love" And the written poem proceeds to say: "A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother, Chair’d in the adamant of Time."

Genres