Walt Whitman. I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won. Brooklyn bard Walt Whitman, born in Long Island on this day, is the subject of a new opera by composer Matthew Aucoin called Crossing. “Whitman is a figure that I have been fascinated by for a long time, and his personal journey, his decision to drop everything and volunteer in the hospitals for three or four years [post Leaves of Grass], and the mystery of that,” said the artist. “What was he really doing beforehand?
Was he in some sort of middle-life crisis? What were his motives?” Whitman’s life and words continue to provoke questions and inspire readers. The poet’s humanist, transcendentalist approach to relationships, nature, beauty, and the soul is life-affirming — as evidenced in these quotes and fragments of his poetry. “Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.” “Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.” “Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.” When Oscar Wilde Visited Walt Whitman In Camden. By by Henrik Eger, Ph.D. A different side of legendary Irish writer Oscar Wilde was recently on display at Walnut Street Theatre in a new play by Michael Whistler entitled Mickle Street. The play revolves around a little known piece of literary history — the period in which the 27-year-old writer traveled to Camden, New Jersey to seek the advice of Walt Whitman.
In Mickle Street, we see Wilde’s wit evolve, but many of his words taste like young wine — a fledging writer struggling with his identity, convinced that he has already made it because of the many Americans who are attending his lectures, from New York and Philadelphia, all the way to Colorado — even though the press writes less than flattering reviews.
Being associated with famous people was as much en vogue in the late 1800s as it is today. David M. Mary, an Irish-Catholic widow, looks after Whitman. Whistler’s Mary has a fine eye for different layers of reality: “You know the paper says he lives ‘on beauty alone.’ Whitman Birthplace to Unveil Rare Whitman Bible. Local News, Travel & Local Attractions, Press Releases By Long Island News & PRs Published: October 22 2014 Call for Whitman Descendants to attend. Huntington Station, NY - October 22, 2014 - Walt Whitman Birthplace Association (WWBA) invites the public and Whitman Descendants to join the unveiling of the newly donated Whitman Family Bible on Friday, November 14, at 2 PM at the Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site. Huntington Town Supervisor Frank Petrone will preside over the Bible unveiling.
The Bible was donated to WWBA by Natalie Swertfager Pearson, widow of Walter Whitman Swertfager, who owned the Bible. Mary Elizabeth Whitman was Walt’s sister and she received the Bible from Walt as a Christmas gift in 1878. “I am thrilled and at peace to donate this Bible that has been kept by many generations,” Natalie Swertfager Pearson said upon her donation.
“The ancestors of Walt’s parents, Louisa Van Velsor & Walt Whitman, Sr., date back two hundred years on Long Island,” says Shor. Contact: The Walt Whitman Birthplace State Historic Site. "Miracles" by Walt Whitman (read by Tom O'Bedlam) Walt Whitman’s Civil War ‘Drum-Taps’, Complete After 150 Years. “I intend to move heaven & earth to publish my ‘Drum-Taps’ as soon as I am able to go around,” Walt Whitman told his friend William O’Connor in 1864, after a mysterious illness, likely contracted from the hospital where he nursed soldiers, claimed his health for a time. The American Civil War was in its third year, and Leaves of Grass in its third edition. With his new book of Civil War poems, Whitman meant to advocate a re-union, a reconciliation, an end to the war, and a continuation of the spirit of democracy set in motion by his earlier work. He wanted Drum-Taps to “express in a poem…the pending action of this Time & Land we swim in…with the unprecedented anguish and suffering, the beautiful young men, in wholesale death & agony.”
The following January, as the war neared its conclusion, Whitman wrote again to O’Connor, explaining that the now fairly completed Drum-Taps was “superior to Leaves of Grass — certainly more perfect as a work of art.’’ "Leaves of Grass" - Walt Whitman. 2. The Bible as Poetry. November Boughs. Whitman, Walt. 1892. Prose Works. Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass 1. O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman (read by Tom O'Bedlam) Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman. The Walt Whitman Archive.