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When reading Whitman and Dickinson, it seems, the one unavoidable topic is loneliness. This is, of course, self-evident in Dickinson. It isn’t as obvious in Whitman, but the more that I read Song of Myself, the more I see loneliness, and the desperation it causes. The whole of the poem seems to be a frenzy of desire for connection, for communion with one’s fellow man. Whitman offers an invitation to others, to all of us, to lean and loaf with him, to share in his self and his life, totally and absolutely: “And what I assume you shall assume, / For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” Ms. Abernathy, my high school English teacher, the woman who probably taught me more than anyone else about literature, pointed out in our class discussion that the first word of the poem is “I” and the last word of the poem is “you” — this is the movement Whitman wants, this the communion he so desires. But there’s no evidence in the poem that this kind of communion actually exists — that Whitman’s invitation is answered and accepted. The poem itself is only invitation, only desire, only need for connection (ah, we’re back to E.M. Forster, aren’t we? “Only connect!”) — in the poem, the connection never occurs. Whitman even expresses doubt that it can occur: “Who wishes to walk with me? // Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?” The important thing, I guess, is our willingness to connect, to open ourselves to others, to do as Whitman did: “I stop somewhere waiting for you.”
I think sometimes that this — loneliness, and that deepest of human desires, the want, the need for some real form of connection and communion with our fellow human beings — is the impulse behind all poetry, whatever the form. For what is a poem but an invitation? What do we ever do, but ask others to reckon our thousand acres?
I guess that it’s this — this passion, this need, this proof that poetry has been, is, and shall ever be a potent and vital force for mankind — that I most want to communicate to my students. But how? But how?
Opening up to Uncle Walt, I think, may be the first step.
(A note: for a glimpse inside my classroom at W.F. Burns Elementary school, and into how the Art of Writing Program works, check out our blog!)
Emma Bolden is the author of How To Recognize A Lady, a chapbook of poems published as part of Edge by Edge, the third in Toadlily Press' Quartet Series, and The Mariner's Wife, a chapbook published by Finishing Line Press. Her third chapbook, The Sad Epistles, is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. She was the recipient of a Tennessee Williams Scholarship to the Sewanee Writers' Conference and was named a Finalist for a Ruth Lilly Fellowship by the Poetry Foundation/Poetry magazine. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in such journals as Prairie Schooner, the Indiana Review, Feminist Studies, The Journal, Redivider, The Greensboro Review, and Verse. Her manuscript was a semi-finalist for the Perugia Press Prize. She is a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Georgetown College, where she also serves as the poetry editor of the Georgetown Review.
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