What I always remember about Whitman, is that when he was towards the end of his life, he spent the time rewriting all of his journals and threw the originals in the fire. I can still imagine him doing this. I have written in a journal each day since I was in 5th grade. I am now 71. I love your work Patti Smith. I did not know it when you first arrived on the music scene. I only discovered it later. It is your intense spark and life force, curiosity, and ability to create disparate parts into wholes that I love.
In 2000, during my first visit to Manhattan, I was thinking about Whitman, his love for the city and his ecstatic merge with the crowds and their lives. As I walked along 5th Avenue in December one night with the rest of the pedestrian holiday shoppers, losing myself in the architecture, lights, the energy of the people, their determined steps, overcoats, hats -- I came upon a video playing in a shop window. It was a jewelry store. My prurient interest got the better of me and I lingered to watch an avant-garde art video of two nearly-nude models, a man and a woman, rolling around in the dirt and grass of some sunny estate, probably in California. Of course, they wore glittering watches and bracelets and necklaces. And almost nothing else.
Suddenly a woman's voice accosted me. "Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you." The voice came from a speaker above the sidewalk. Huh? Was I being stalked? Was this a minimum-wage temp holiday job, a young lady handed a microphone, and assigned to address and arrest and confuse hapless passers-by like myself who lingered over the muddy models rolling around in lingerie.
"You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,"
She's good, I thought. I shielded my eyes from surrounding glare and attempted to peer into the window, hoping to see the master of the voice, peering back and waving with a white-toothed smile, rings glittering on her fingers. But I saw no one. She went on with her measured lines
"All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only"
The crowds walked by me. No one stopping, no one caring about the video or the voice. And then suddenly it hit me. I KNOW these words. This is a poem by Walt Whitman! "To a Passing Stranger". Dear god. It was no stalker, it was a looped recording. I had been wondering for a week how I might encounter Walt -- how would I find him, recognize him -- in his city, O Mannahatta! I stood on the sidewalk suddenly giddy, laughing. It was all for me; no one else noticed or cared. They all coursed by me in both directions. Of COURSE, Walt would come to me in this disguised way: a tasteless video, a posh jewelry store, a young woman's voice. It was a Zen slap to take the knees out from under.
Walt Whitman was my first love while I was in High School where I dreamingly read his books under summer trees. To hear Allen's voice was a jewel. It reminded me of a strange scene I once encountered of a poetry teacher of mine, I saw in a supermarket in Santa Cruz, California who stood before the deli portion of the cold meats-with a paper and pen. I watched him make notes...now I know many years later he was composing his own California Supermarket poem.............Hah-a mystery solved!
I wanted to come back, Patti, to say how much I love your reading of Fernando Pessoa’s tribute to Whitman. The whole thing is great but I love the joy with which you proclaim the end - “the whole universe!” It’s so “Whitmany”, at least as I experience and imagine Whitman to be.
What is the white glove that you take off - wonderfully - with your mouth and discard? At first I thought it was because you were handling rare books, but you only have the one glove on and you’re reading from a paperback that is probably not a rare book. Is it that you were handling some of the books on the shelf next to where you are standing and they needed to be handled with gloves?
I don’t have words adequate to how much I love Whitman and Ginsberg. Helen Vendler once said of Wallace Stevens that it’s not so much that she thinks Stevens is the greatest of all poets, but that he is the poet that she would have been had she been the poet that he was.
That’s how I feel about Whitman and Ginsberg: their utterances are what I would utter were I capable of such uttering.
Thank you so much for including Ginsberg’s reading. I adore this poem: so fitting and Ginsbergian to invoke and invite Whitman in a supermarket in California. I love that he begins in the first part by saying “What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman . . . “ He begins, with his headache and feeling self-conscious, with “thoughts” of Whitman, and then - dreaming of Whitman’s enumerations, the inexplicable incredible magical imaginative leap wherein he spies Lorca by the watermelons and in the next section Whitman, childless (there are families and children in the supermarket) lonely old grubber, is there, among the meats in the refrigerator eyeing the grocery boys!
One can hardly imagine a more ecstatic imaginative leap and lark than to find Whitman in the neon fruit supermarket. It’s just extraordinary.
They both were extraordinary. I am and will be grateful to them for my whole life. And I’ll be grateful to you, too, Patti.
Robin, this post makes me think "you're back". I admire your wealth of knowledge of all things literary - I imagine the library that fills your brain that allows you to pull Stevens, Whitman, Ginsberg - just to name three. I echo Jim's sentiments. Your perspective and
unique voice are greatly appreciated. Warm wishes are on the wing. As always, mind how you go...really.
Suzi, I appreciate your kind words so much especially having spent all day yesterday in hospital. Seemingly out of the blue, I became septic with a bad infection. It was so shocking. I have become septic before but this came on without warning. It was scary and exhausting.
They were in the process of admitting me when my doctor changed his mind and said I could return home and receive IV antibiotics at home. I was so relieved - most of all because I never want to be separated from Max (my beloved dog).
I have a head full of poems because no matter what has happened in my life, poetry has been there to rescue me. Yesterday was no exception.
Thank you again for your kindness. I’m so glad that what I share resonates with you and anyone else here.
And so you know: when I was on the gurney in the hospital, I thought of you and repeated, like a mantra: “Mind how you go.”
Beautifully said, Robin. If you get out today, stay away from SIRENS...easier said than done in a big city. Just take care of yourself. You are a treasured part of this community.
Thank you so much for these kind words, Jim. I appreciate them more than I can say.
It was all I could do not to delete my post of yesterday, so humiliated do I feel for that episode and just generally over the last couple of weeks: first the brain injury rendering me presently unable to speak fluently, and then vomiting on the street.
It’s strange and wrong that such things make one feel - or fear being perceived of as - weak when really it takes strength to get through such trials. I try to write against the shame because there shouldn’t be shame in suffering, but there is.
Anyway, I appreciate your words, especially your perception of me as a valuable member of this community.
You're right, of course, Robin. There's no reason to be ashamed yet we all feel it no matter what the cause. 'Shame in suffering' is such a mystery. It wasn't as I'd you had anything to do with it. It just happened. Anyway I hope healing comes as quickly as possible. Wishing you nothing but the best.
The poet Mary Oliver, for whom the poetry of Whitman was a kind of salvation during a difficult childhood, wrote of “the oceanic power and rumble that travels through a Whitman poem—-the incantatory syntax, the boundless affirmation” and adds, “I lived many hours within the lit circle of his certainty, and his bravado.”
I like the idea of this Substack space of yours being a similar “lit circle” for readers to gather within and be enriched.
Thank you so much for this, Janet. I did not know that Whitman meant so much to Mary Oliver, and really appreciate hearing of it. I can really understand how Whitman would be rescuing. He certainly was for me.
How beautiful your sense of this space being a “lit circle.” I wholeheartedly agree.
Whitman seems like one of the first to address and embrace complexity--"do I contradict myself?" Essential for accepting the human condition and each of us.
I know the drill x
Great poet.
You know so much Patti, enjoyed everything here. Thank you for educating us. Loved Ginsberg. Timely.
Yes, indeed! The Walt Whitman bridge is 15 minutes from my beloved hometown. Darby, Pa.
👍🏻❤️🙏🏻
What I always remember about Whitman, is that when he was towards the end of his life, he spent the time rewriting all of his journals and threw the originals in the fire. I can still imagine him doing this. I have written in a journal each day since I was in 5th grade. I am now 71. I love your work Patti Smith. I did not know it when you first arrived on the music scene. I only discovered it later. It is your intense spark and life force, curiosity, and ability to create disparate parts into wholes that I love.
Thanks for being in Charleston, SC, tonight. We were all so happy to be with you, and we hope you enjoyed being here with us.
Thanks to you and Jesse for feting Walt Whitman so beautifully.
Fred meyer soon to close.
Milk for morning coffees check for discount produce, maybe still a free cookie in the bakery.
'Security to Section C' orders voice on high.
Cashier and I look at each other and laugh.
'Does anyone fall for that?' i ask
In 2000, during my first visit to Manhattan, I was thinking about Whitman, his love for the city and his ecstatic merge with the crowds and their lives. As I walked along 5th Avenue in December one night with the rest of the pedestrian holiday shoppers, losing myself in the architecture, lights, the energy of the people, their determined steps, overcoats, hats -- I came upon a video playing in a shop window. It was a jewelry store. My prurient interest got the better of me and I lingered to watch an avant-garde art video of two nearly-nude models, a man and a woman, rolling around in the dirt and grass of some sunny estate, probably in California. Of course, they wore glittering watches and bracelets and necklaces. And almost nothing else.
Suddenly a woman's voice accosted me. "Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you." The voice came from a speaker above the sidewalk. Huh? Was I being stalked? Was this a minimum-wage temp holiday job, a young lady handed a microphone, and assigned to address and arrest and confuse hapless passers-by like myself who lingered over the muddy models rolling around in lingerie.
"You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,"
She's good, I thought. I shielded my eyes from surrounding glare and attempted to peer into the window, hoping to see the master of the voice, peering back and waving with a white-toothed smile, rings glittering on her fingers. But I saw no one. She went on with her measured lines
"All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only"
The crowds walked by me. No one stopping, no one caring about the video or the voice. And then suddenly it hit me. I KNOW these words. This is a poem by Walt Whitman! "To a Passing Stranger". Dear god. It was no stalker, it was a looped recording. I had been wondering for a week how I might encounter Walt -- how would I find him, recognize him -- in his city, O Mannahatta! I stood on the sidewalk suddenly giddy, laughing. It was all for me; no one else noticed or cared. They all coursed by me in both directions. Of COURSE, Walt would come to me in this disguised way: a tasteless video, a posh jewelry store, a young woman's voice. It was a Zen slap to take the knees out from under.
Thanks, Joseph. Good story - good storyteller. Thoroughly enjoyed that.
What a wonderful experience, Joseph, and how beautifully you tell it. Thank you!
I never realized this was the quote “I contain multitudes” comes from! Reading some Whitman today.
Thank you Patti
Walt Whitman was my first love while I was in High School where I dreamingly read his books under summer trees. To hear Allen's voice was a jewel. It reminded me of a strange scene I once encountered of a poetry teacher of mine, I saw in a supermarket in Santa Cruz, California who stood before the deli portion of the cold meats-with a paper and pen. I watched him make notes...now I know many years later he was composing his own California Supermarket poem.............Hah-a mystery solved!
What a great memory. Thank you for sharing it, Lynnette.
I wanted to come back, Patti, to say how much I love your reading of Fernando Pessoa’s tribute to Whitman. The whole thing is great but I love the joy with which you proclaim the end - “the whole universe!” It’s so “Whitmany”, at least as I experience and imagine Whitman to be.
What is the white glove that you take off - wonderfully - with your mouth and discard? At first I thought it was because you were handling rare books, but you only have the one glove on and you’re reading from a paperback that is probably not a rare book. Is it that you were handling some of the books on the shelf next to where you are standing and they needed to be handled with gloves?
I don’t have words adequate to how much I love Whitman and Ginsberg. Helen Vendler once said of Wallace Stevens that it’s not so much that she thinks Stevens is the greatest of all poets, but that he is the poet that she would have been had she been the poet that he was.
That’s how I feel about Whitman and Ginsberg: their utterances are what I would utter were I capable of such uttering.
Thank you so much for including Ginsberg’s reading. I adore this poem: so fitting and Ginsbergian to invoke and invite Whitman in a supermarket in California. I love that he begins in the first part by saying “What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman . . . “ He begins, with his headache and feeling self-conscious, with “thoughts” of Whitman, and then - dreaming of Whitman’s enumerations, the inexplicable incredible magical imaginative leap wherein he spies Lorca by the watermelons and in the next section Whitman, childless (there are families and children in the supermarket) lonely old grubber, is there, among the meats in the refrigerator eyeing the grocery boys!
One can hardly imagine a more ecstatic imaginative leap and lark than to find Whitman in the neon fruit supermarket. It’s just extraordinary.
They both were extraordinary. I am and will be grateful to them for my whole life. And I’ll be grateful to you, too, Patti.
As ever,
Robin
Robin, this post makes me think "you're back". I admire your wealth of knowledge of all things literary - I imagine the library that fills your brain that allows you to pull Stevens, Whitman, Ginsberg - just to name three. I echo Jim's sentiments. Your perspective and
unique voice are greatly appreciated. Warm wishes are on the wing. As always, mind how you go...really.
Suzi, I appreciate your kind words so much especially having spent all day yesterday in hospital. Seemingly out of the blue, I became septic with a bad infection. It was so shocking. I have become septic before but this came on without warning. It was scary and exhausting.
They were in the process of admitting me when my doctor changed his mind and said I could return home and receive IV antibiotics at home. I was so relieved - most of all because I never want to be separated from Max (my beloved dog).
I have a head full of poems because no matter what has happened in my life, poetry has been there to rescue me. Yesterday was no exception.
Thank you again for your kindness. I’m so glad that what I share resonates with you and anyone else here.
And so you know: when I was on the gurney in the hospital, I thought of you and repeated, like a mantra: “Mind how you go.”
With gratitude and affection, always,
Robin
Beautifully said, Robin. If you get out today, stay away from SIRENS...easier said than done in a big city. Just take care of yourself. You are a treasured part of this community.
Thank you so much for these kind words, Jim. I appreciate them more than I can say.
It was all I could do not to delete my post of yesterday, so humiliated do I feel for that episode and just generally over the last couple of weeks: first the brain injury rendering me presently unable to speak fluently, and then vomiting on the street.
It’s strange and wrong that such things make one feel - or fear being perceived of as - weak when really it takes strength to get through such trials. I try to write against the shame because there shouldn’t be shame in suffering, but there is.
Anyway, I appreciate your words, especially your perception of me as a valuable member of this community.
Hoping that you are well and happy.
With gratitude and affection,
Robin
You're right, of course, Robin. There's no reason to be ashamed yet we all feel it no matter what the cause. 'Shame in suffering' is such a mystery. It wasn't as I'd you had anything to do with it. It just happened. Anyway I hope healing comes as quickly as possible. Wishing you nothing but the best.
The poet Mary Oliver, for whom the poetry of Whitman was a kind of salvation during a difficult childhood, wrote of “the oceanic power and rumble that travels through a Whitman poem—-the incantatory syntax, the boundless affirmation” and adds, “I lived many hours within the lit circle of his certainty, and his bravado.”
I like the idea of this Substack space of yours being a similar “lit circle” for readers to gather within and be enriched.
Thank you so much for this, Janet. I did not know that Whitman meant so much to Mary Oliver, and really appreciate hearing of it. I can really understand how Whitman would be rescuing. He certainly was for me.
How beautiful your sense of this space being a “lit circle.” I wholeheartedly agree.
Gratefully,
Robin
I'm very happy for your reference to a great Portuguese poet. Pessoa (Álvaro de Campos in particular) is one of my favorites.
Greetings from Lisbon.
Whitman seems like one of the first to address and embrace complexity--"do I contradict myself?" Essential for accepting the human condition and each of us.