C. K. Williams' "On Whitman"

I wasn't particularly satisfied with this book. I could see that Williams was enthusiastic about Whitman. But the book was too scattered, too disorganized to pass that enthusiasm on to me.

I learned a few things about Whitman and this book gave me many samples of Whitman's poetry to sample. But I never felt that Williams offered a clear guiding hand to fully understand Whitman's artistry or to come to a good appreciation of Whitman's body of work. Instead this book came across as a stream of consciousness filled with recollections and enthusiasms about Whitman. You had to be an "insider" to appreciate a good deal of it.

I liked much of Whitman's poetry as presented in the book. I just wanted more introduction and more "glue" so that all the pieces made more sense.

Here is one bit that spoke to me. It is the poem "Song of Myself" from Leaves of Grass:

I think I could turn and live with animals, they're so placid and self contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth.

The one thing this book did do for me -- so you can call the book a "success" -- is that it has pushed me into reading two books recommended by Williams:

• Paul Zweig's Walt Whitman: The Making of the Poet


• David S. Reynolds' Walt Whitman's America