Home Poetry & Literature Film Music Art Everything Else  
Walt Whitman Interview



Permalink | Comments (0) | RSS

According to Ed Folsom, English professor and editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review at the University of Iowa, "New interviews with Whitman are unearthed about once a year." One of the more recent interviews unearthed by a junior attending college in Palmyra, PA. has many historians and English professors up in arms about the nature of Whitman's words.The interview came as quite a shock when Whitman gave two young aspiring wordsmiths the advice: "Don't become poets." In the article, the two young men visited Whitman at his home in Camden for a discussion with the scholarly author on the education of a writer. Later in the interview Whitman continues by saying, "You may be surprised to hear me say so, but there is no particular need of poetic expression," adding to the pair, "We are utilitarian, and the current cannot be stopped." Another part Whitman's advice that surprised the experts was when he suggested to the two young men that they get their hands dirty in the mechanics of printing. Whitman's exact words in the article were, "Whack away at everything pertaining to literary life - mechanical part as well as the rest. Learn to set type, learn to work at the 'case,' learn to be a practical printer, and whatever you do learn condensation." The overall feeling expressed throughout the article by Whitman suggests that forthcoming writers breakaway from the conformities of writing mechanics; also to make there writing more potent by curtailing their words, and finally to learn the technical part of writing production. Roughly, 100 interviews with Whitman have been discovered over the years.

Post a comment
Name:
*
Email Address:
*
Comments: