  Poetry
This week: Walt Whitman Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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This is poetry from the minds and the hearts of poets on Writing.Com. The poems I am going to be exposing throughout this newsletter are ones that I have found to be, very visual, mood setting and uniquely done. Stormy Lady
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While sitting down to write my poetry newsletter, I couldn't help but remember Dead Poet's Society. I fondly remembered one of my favorite actors in a roll where he inspired countless people to read, write and experience poetry. So I thought it was a good time to visit one of the poems that stood out in the movie for so many to hear and the poet that wrote it.
O Captain! My Captain!
by Walt Whitman
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
What Weeping Face
by Walt Whitman
What weeping face is that looking from the window?
Why does it stream those sorrowful tears?
Is it for some burial place, vast and dry?
Is it to wet the soil of graves?
On May 31, 1819 Louisa Van Velsor and Walter Whitman welcomed their son Walt Whitman into the world. Walt was born near Huntington, Long Island, New York. He was the second oldest of eleven children. When Whitman was four he moved to Brooklyn where his father worked as a carpenter. He attended public school until he turned eleven. That was the end of he schooling. Shortly there after Whitman became an apprentice to a printer and learned the trade. From that point on he was in love with the written word. He was largely self taught and read the Bible, Homer and Shakespeare.
At the age of seventeen he became a teacher in a one-room school house. He taught five years from 1836 to 1841 when he decided to become a full time journalist. He worked for a weekly newspaper called the Long-Islander. Later he worked for a number of New York papers. In 1848 he started working at the New Orleans Crescent. It was in there Whitman saw first hand the extreme brutality of slavery. That same fall he returned to Brooklyn and founded a "free soil" newspaper, the Brooklyn Freeman During this time he continued to develop his poetry. In 1855 Whitman published his first edition of Leaves of Grass. During the rest of his career Whitman would publish this book several times, each time refining it some from the time before.
With the start of the Civil War, Whitman continued to be a freelance journalist and he visited wounded soldiers in the hospitals of New York. It was In December of 1862 after getting word that his brother was wounded that Whitman moved to Washington, D.C. to care for him. It was there that he became overwhelmed by all the young men that were suffering that he decided to stay and work in the hospitals. For the next eleven years Washington D.C. was his home. He took a job as a clerk for the Department of Interior only to be fired when James Harlan found out he was the author of Leaves of Grass, a book Harlan offensive.
Whitman never became a wealthy man. He spent what little money he had on supplies for the soldiers he nursed and sent money home to his mother and brother. Writers from the U.S. and from England would send him money to help him out from time to time. In 1873, Whitman left Washington after suffering a stroke. He lived with his brother until 1882 when another publication of Leaves of Grass gave him enough money to move to Camden, New Jersey.
Whitman spent the remainder of his life writing new editions of his first book and writing his final book of poems entitled, Good-Bye, My Fancy which was published in 1891. Whitman died in Camden, New Jersey on March 26, 1892. He was buried in a tomb that he himself designed. He lived to be 73.
I Hear America Singing
by Walt Whitman
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics--each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and
strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off
work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat--the deckhand
singing on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench--the hatter singing as
he stands;
The wood-cutter's song--the ploughboy's, on his way in the morning,
or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother--or of the young wife at work--or
of the girl sewing or washing--Each singing what belongs to
her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day--At night, the party of young
fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.
In Midnight Sleep
by Walt Whitman
In midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish,
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded--of that indescribable
look;
Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide,
I dream, I dream, I dream.
Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains;
Of skies, so beauteous after a storm--and at night the moon so
unearthly bright,
Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and gather
the heaps,
I dream, I dream, I dream.
Long, long have they pass'd--faces and trenches and fields;
Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure--or away
from the fallen,
Onward I sped at the time--But now of their forms at night,
I dream, I dream, I dream.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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The winners of "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" [ASR] are:
No words fall upon this paper.
Spiteful feelings left untold.
Your actions pierce right through my process,
no witty rhymes or prose to throw.
I tell myself to just start writing
what is meant to be will surely start
but your yanking, cranking "corrections"
deceive the very core that is my heart.
He is cowering and shaking.
Look down upon him, aren't you proud?
Your revenge sets in, oh so sweetly,
the silence so staggering, it's almost loud.
I'm watching, shocked and emotions twisted,
too scared to open my mouth and speak.
Is this what I really signed up for?
My gentle hands now feel so weak.
A type of evil that can't be retracted.
A metaphorical knife plunges in and takes hold;
An abuser will go on abusing
until one strong voice stands up and says no.
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Inner Demons
Revenge can leave a bitter taste
and taint the spirit with despair.
Beware, for if you chose in haste,
your darkest secrets will lie bare.
Deep in the dungeons of the mind,
beyond the reach of common sense,
dark spiteful creatures lurk behind
the shadowed walls of my pretence.
Their twisted evil pierces heart
unless, with fervour, I defend,
deceiving demons, ere they start
to plunge my soul down to its end.
Honorable mention:
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Poetry: August 20, 2014 Issue [#6504]
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