tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5100640878581081403.post8889990685446937746..comments2023-12-16T23:54:45.620+13:00Comments on . . . All Finite Things Reveal Infinitude . . . : TUESDAY POEM | Who Learns My Lessons Complete? by Walt Whitman Claire Beynonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00005365677016923903noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5100640878581081403.post-15678131349912925452014-03-20T03:44:28.835+13:002014-03-20T03:44:28.835+13:00"And that my soul embraces you this hour, and... "And that my soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other<br /> without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see<br /> each other, is every bit as wonderful."<br /><br />Ah blogging....and people I will only meet in this way. What a blessing!Kasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05233330248952156754noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5100640878581081403.post-9923496164144109952014-03-19T11:32:09.599+13:002014-03-19T11:32:09.599+13:00Recently there was a Senator here, a Scott Ludlam,...Recently there was a Senator here, a Scott Ludlam, who spoke to a near empty Senate chamber about the Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. You can see the video here - http://tinyurl.com/k98z2nc. His words were scripted, laden, clunky, smeared with sarcasm, but they were able to express what many people felt about Abbott, yet which for some reason -- remarkably -- nobody had wanted to express. At least not publicly. (This was weeks before the recent "March in March" protests, and may have helped spark those protests). It was as if something -- some creeping complacency, some lack of feeling -- had been preventing such words from being born, and then, suddenly, wake up, there they were. <br /><br />Of course, this often happens in politics, and politics is trivial compared to poetry. But art, too, can grow unfeeling, dull, unaware of its own complacency, and in my mind "I sing the body electric" is the greatest defibrillation ever penned in the English language. It is the cry not just of a newly born and naked America, but of a newly born and naked poetry. Snapping us awake. Giving life and language a new birth. Elecstacy. Freedom, nakedness in the vibrating sun.Zireauxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17066215518736407170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5100640878581081403.post-80232651026347639282014-03-19T09:05:17.494+13:002014-03-19T09:05:17.494+13:00Scott, hello. Would you believe I was on your blog...Scott, hello. Would you believe I was on your blog reading your latest post at the exact same time you were here reading Whitman's poem? I have not leave a message for you yet but am ever so glad you've returned to write and share your insights after your 'necessary' and inwardly productive time away. I, too, have spent a fair while roaming the shadowlands this past while, wrestling my way towards new understandings, esp. re; the concept of 'constructive suffering'. I have been humbled to discover how easy it is to 'model' compassion and how difficult it is to truly embody it, both towards oneself and towards others. In the midst of all this, I am well and - as T in Seattle said recently - learning to hold sorrow and joy with an open heart and in the same hand. It is comforting, is it not, to know that even while we must walk some parts of this road alone, we are ever-accompanied, too. <br /><br />Thank you for visiting. I am so very glad you are back. Claire Beynonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00005365677016923903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5100640878581081403.post-65033072783814622282014-03-19T08:52:52.990+13:002014-03-19T08:52:52.990+13:00Hello Zireaux - how happy I am to find word from y...Hello Zireaux - how happy I am to find word from you here. Thank you for visiting. <br /><br />I've been considering what our dear friend Melissa might call the 'felth and texture' of these and other Whitman words. What, I wonder, do you hear/see/feel or understand when you read these ones - "I sing the body electric'? Truly, I am interested to know.<br /><br />As to whether any other poetry has contained as much unbridled love as his? He invites us to celebrate ourselves in all our jagged and holy imperfection. I am immensely grateful to him for that.Claire Beynonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00005365677016923903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5100640878581081403.post-73257659687595318372014-03-19T05:05:52.414+13:002014-03-19T05:05:52.414+13:00Claire-
thanks for this, I had not read it before...Claire-<br /><br />thanks for this, I had not read it before and of course I love Whitman and reading him, reading this in particular, has lifted my own heart from a slough of some darkness. <br /><br />hope you are well and happy, you certainly gave me some happiness today.tearful dishwasherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13436954924992728636noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5100640878581081403.post-79945479524441224542014-03-19T00:30:00.146+13:002014-03-19T00:30:00.146+13:00Wonderful poem, Claire. Have always admired Whitma...Wonderful poem, Claire. Have always admired Whitman's cataloging technique, mirrored in Melville, and most recently and brilliantly mastered by the late literary critic, John Leonard. But it's the "myself" of Whitman that is so innocent and playful, a child let free in the greatest museum ever imagined -- the universe itself -- "nudging myself," stripping naked in the sun. Has any other poetry contained as much unbridled love? - ZireauxZireauxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17066215518736407170noreply@blogger.com