January 29, 2014

Walt Whitman 2014



Walt is all around us lately.

Did you take note of the Apple television ad for the iPad Air? It quotes Whitman's “O Me! O Life!” to promote the idea of creating, and it uses Robin Williams from his English teacher role in Dead Poets Society.


“That the powerful play goes on,
and you may contribute a verse.”


Walt is also on the new poster designed by the Academy of American Poets for this year's  National Poetry Month.  You can request a copy online.

The poster uses the closing lines of “Song of Myself,”

“Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged;
Missing me one place, search another;
I stop somewhere, waiting for you.”

If you want to go deeply into Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself," you can enroll in a free course offered online by the University of Iowa. This course - known as a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) - will be open to thousands of people at no cost (and for no credit).

Every Atom: Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself" will take a collective approach to a close reading of America’s democratic verse epic, first published without a title in the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass and later titled "Song of Myself" in the 1881 edition.



    2 comments:

    1. The Telegraph has a story about the shilling of English chips using poet R.S. Thomas.

      ReplyDelete
      Replies
      1. Maureen: Huh? I am totally missing the reference here. Whitman?

        Delete

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