Stirred, Not Shaken

A New York Times review of a joint in Brooklyn called Henry Public thinks so.

For vinyl fans, I just found this self-consciously erotic record on eBay. Ah, the ’70s. The eBay seller’s come-on is, “Walt Whitman’s Sex Writings – SEALED!” You can have a listen here at the Mickle Street Review. Starting bid only 12.00. Any takers?

On the radio the other day I learned about this huge cache of Vincent Van Gogh’s letters that’s been made available (and searchable) on the Internet. Immediately searching for Whitman, of course, I came to this passage from an 1888 letter Van Gogh wrote to this sister: Have you read Whitman’s American poems yet? Theo […]

Tags: painting, van gogh, ww20

One sad thing I notice in the Longaker is how different Whitman’s view of his own body has become, now that it’s shutting down.  Here was the speaker of “Song” in 1855: The smoke of my own breath, Echos, ripples, and buzzed whispers . . . . loveroot, silkthread, crotch and vine, My respiration and inspiration . . . . the beating of […]

In a few weeks, we’ll be focusing on Whitman’s literary legacy. With that in mind, I couldn’t help being struck by this passage of the interview we read for today, in which he responds to the question “What will be the character of the American literature when it does form?”: It will be something entirely […]

Kim Roberts, who’ll be our guide on Saturday (http://www.kimroberts.org, http://www.beltwaypoetry.com) has sent these for us:  a map of our tour and an image of the haversack Whitman took on his rounds to the hospitals. Map by Emery Pajer. We will be seeing work places 8 through 11 on our walking tour, and boarding house location […]

Tags: fieldtrip, washington, ww20

Tags: chatham, fieldtrip, fredericksburg, ww20

In case you haven’t yet taken a look at this, here’s a nine-minute segment that follows the Union soldiers running up to Marye’s Heights and the Confederates firing down on them from behind the stone wall.

Tags: ww20 fieldtrip battle

Tags: fieldtrip

Last week I mentioned these. The top one called “Harvest of Death” (!) is supposed to be a group of dead Confederate soldiers; the one with trees in the background Northerners. But if you look closely at the detail (flipped & zoomed) in the third frame, you realize it’s really the same group of soldiers […]