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Essential Whitman (Essential Poets)

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"The Essential Whitman" consists of the poetry of Walt Whitman as selected by Galway Kinnell, who also provides an introduction. In his intro Kinnell notes that Whitman continually revised his great poetry, but not always, in Kinnell's opinion, for the better. Kinnell further notes that the versions of the poems in this book incorporate the best aspects of Whitman's many versions. He writes, "Some of the poems in this book, therefore, are in versions that have never existed before." Notes at the end of the collection show what versions were incorporated into the poems as reconstituted by Kinnell.

I'm not enough of a Whitman scholar to thoroughly critique Kinnell's technique and choices. But I do find his approach fascinating, and I enjoyed the poetry for what it is.

The poetry in this book is an expansive, passionate testament with the flavor of prophecy--the prophecy, that is, of a playful and joyous heretic. Whitman shows a compassion for and identification with all human beings, regardless of race, gender, or religion. He is a great forerunner of 20th and 21st century multiculturalism, and shows a sympathy with the suffering and the oppressed.

His vision moves from the intimacy of a blade of grass to the movement of the stars; his eye takes in all of human history and prehistory. His writing is marked by delicious irony and paradox; he is bold enough to say "let one line of my poems contradict another!" At times the poetry seems to reflect the experience of an altered state of consciousness. Whitman's "barbaric yawp" is one of the essential voices of American poetry, and Kinnell has put together a marvelous sampling of that voice.