The Blab of the pave, let's start with that. Blab of the pave, what's pave? >> The street. >> Street, short for pavement, I assume, right? Blab? Anna? >> It's kind of babble. >> Yeah, babble, keep going, anybody else? Blab, I love that word. >> It's the talk of the street, just- >> Talk of the street, the blab. Because it's a monosyllable, because it's so American in its connotation. >> It's vernacular, first of all. >> Vernacular, this is really about the sound of the vernacular of this passage. >> Which is great because it's like, in one sense, that's so unpoetic. >> Unpoetic in a traditional sense, yeah. >> In traditional sense, it's very unpoetic, but he's making it poetic. >> What's he doing in this whole scene linguistically or conceptually? What's going on? What's he doing? What's his purpose? >> I think he's being innovative in that first, he brought the poet out into nature, and that was new. And now, he's crafting an urban poetry, which also is new at that time. >> An urban poetry, so cool. An urban poetry, here we are in the 19th century, in New York, presumably. He loved the crowdedness, he loved to be a flender. He loved to be involved, but also standing aside. And what is he doing with this list? Blab of the pave, tires of carts, sluff of boot soles, talk of the promenaders, heavy omnibus, the driver with his interrogating thumb. We go many, many instances in a list before we get to a verb. It's a fragment, the driver with his interrogating thumb. Just the very notion of that grammar, what's it suggest? Emily, what do you think? >> Well, it seems sort of this attempt for this striving for a kind of frenetic inclusiveness. And by delaying the verb he's trying to maintain the sense of disorder and chaos even within the naturally ordered sort of system of asyntactical structure. >> There's almost the politics of the verb here. There's almost a critique of the verb, and of the subordinated clause. So let's talk about catalogs and democracy, lists and democracy. This supposedly is democratic writing. Okay, so how so, what's it about the catalog in the list. Start us off, Max. >> Well, it's inclusive, he's not making, at least not until the end, he doesn't seem to be making a judgment, or even telling us what all this information is. It's just sensory detail, it's everything that he can see. >> Whatever he can see, he's writing it all down. Or he's listening. Hurrahs of the favorites, fury of the roused mob. >> And he's not going to get it all. It's kind of impossible get it all. >> But he seems to have the fantasy that he can get it all. Which of course at the very end of our course gets to conceptualists who think that the subject can get out of the way. And simply reboots as Kenneth Goldsmith does. Everything in an issue of the New York Times, or in the text we'll be discussing. Everything that he says in a week, and his editorial poetic self steps out of the way. Where Jackson McClow, who by chance, operations will reproduce a text without the subject intruding at all. This seems to be sort of the beginning of that. >> Well at least he's invoking that all that deserves inclusion even if he isn't able to. And they all seem to be individual blades of grass. I'd even argue the image of it, I don't know if that's taking it to far, but it just seems like- >> He invites you to take it pretty far. So let's just try on the politics of subordinated clauses and cause and effect of clauses. This is pretty hard to do. Anyone want to give it a try? >> If you just take the whole poem and then look at the line, what howls are restrained by decorum. Restraining it by decorum could sort of imply that kind of push me against form that he's doing. >> Absolutely, that is definitely meta-poetic statement. But let's talk about the subordinated clause. You can't look at the poem because there aren't any there. When someone subordinates a clause, what are they implying? That clause is sort of subjectible, it's unnecessary. >> It's grammatically unnecessary. You can take it out and the sentence still does its main work. And so whatever is in the subordinated clause is subordinate, is not as important. >> All is subordinate. >> Everything here is equally important and he does not make the decision for you as to what to pay attention to. >> This a crowd scene and it is confusing because urban life is confusing and he allows the confusion to stand. Without organizing for you, without subjectivizing it, without subordinating anything to anything else. So the eye and the ear don't know what to do, you are modern, you are watching you are in the thick of it. And I mind them, he says. I come and I depart. The subject position seems to be, I mind them. There's a verb. I mind them, he almost takes the noun sense of mind, as in the brain. I brain them. I mind them. Or the show, or resonance of, the resonance has a kind of oral quality, I come and I depart he's in the scene, he's out of the scene. Let's skip to section 14. Quick passage here. What is commonist, cheapest, nearest, easiest is Me. Capital M. These are not words that are usually positive. Common, you common person you. Cheapest, easiest. Nearest is interesting, too. What does any of this mean? Tell us about Walt. Max, the subject, the writer, the I of Song of Myself, tell us about him. >> He's saying here that the common denominator is the self. That what is most common, what is most accessible is well, at least for him, it's me, it's him. >> Anybody else, what do you think of this person? What is this person, Amarice? >> Maybe if he was just referencing the physical experience in itself, physicality is what is common and universal >> That might seem the most indecent or basest experience of some. >> Why celebrate cheapness? >> Because it's accessible. >> Democratic, free. Why easiest? This is weird because we just celebrated the difficulty and complexity and openendedness of them [INAUDIBLE] poetry. >> Whereas- >> Now, it's okay to like different modes. But easiest? What does he mean by easiest? >> Accessible, I mean, he wants this poem to be something that everyone can read and understand. >> What I assume, you should all assume. And if you do [INAUDIBLE] each other that way, it's implicit, ipso facto easy. [INAUDIBLE] I'm sorry. >> Having something be easy allows it to me more spontaneous. Because you don't have to worry about some process that kind of enforces the difficulty. So there might be more potential for joy through- >> There's joy in ease. >> Kristen? >> It's also like a bodily easiness as Amarise was saying. It's more of a base physical, easy sexually. >> Sexually, easy. I'm easy, I think that was a song once, from a film, Nashville. None of you saw that but I did. I'm easy If you just go up to the stanza preceding, I am enamoured of growing outdoors. Well, we know that he wants to get out of the perfumed rooms. Of men, he's really interested in men here, men who live outdoors, men who are essentially like the beast, who travel like hobos across the country, fast. Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods, of the builders and steerers of ships and the wielders of axes and mauls, and the drivers of horses. I can eat and sleep with them week in and week out, I am easy. This is the way which his omnivorous sexual longing in love, it's not just homosexuality, it's kind of omnisexuality or bisexuality. Whatever it is, the idea that he is, that there's sort of a queer Walt is easy and accessible. It's self-abnegation to the point where he loves everyone and is accessible to everyone, and that becomes an aesthetic. So we go to Section 47, and we get to another favorite passage of mine. Again, I think it's a meta-pedagogical moment in this poem, Song of Myself. I am the teacher of athletes. He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own, proves the width of my own. He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher. What are we going to do with that? Dave, have you thought about this? >> I think he's saying that I, as the teacher, am only as good and successful as my students. >> And that's a nice notion of teaching. Again, not the traditional, I speak, you listen lecturing thing. This is the one who says that if my knowledge enables you, then I'm better, successful. Okay, that's nice, very progressive notion of teaching. I am the teacher of athletes. He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own, proves the width of my own. Is this an analogy to the reader, really? What's going on, who is he teaching, and what does he mean by honors my style? Anna, your thought? >> I think that if he's, and I think he is doing this, but he's really breaking up form. And if people later on, let's say the Beats, or let's say William Carlos Williams, take this and expand it even more and do even greater things with it, then Walt can say, yes, I was successful here. By breaking up form, I opened up possibilities to do even more with poetry. >> And, Kristen, what could he possibly mean by destroy the teacher? >> Well, it's kind of- >> It's a little agonistic and brutal when he says that. >> Yeah, yeah, it's very aggressive, and it's kind of undermining the self. When in the beginning, he was singing himself, it's a bit of a flip there. >> A bit of a flip- >> It's him reckoning with the paradoxical nature of the poem. Calling, sort of asking or commanding that people not follow what's in books or not follow commands. >> And yet, if we honor his style in Leaves of Grass, the leaves being the page, we will be deriving our style from his. And we will have been taught, somewhat in a conventional way, by him. >> Also, that destruction of the teacher, I think, indicates this kind of going back to the keyword organic or original. It kind of points to the circle of life notion and the impermanence of himself. So we get to that at the very end of the poem when he is, look for me under your boot-soles, he is that kind of decomposed material. >> He's everywhere. >> Yeah. >> He's the sandman, he's zelig, he's in the air that we breathe. I teach straying- >> I want to hold my breath. >> What's that? >> It makes me want to hold my breath. [LAUGH] >> It makes you want to hold your breath, all right. l teach straying from me, l love this. And, in fact, it resonates surprisingly well with the Emily Dickinson, who allows the mind, the brain to go in some direction. l teach straying from me, he says in the middle of Section 47, yet, who can stray from me? First of all, I teach straying from me. I teach digression, I teach freedom, I teach. And he's gotta ironize the notion of teaching. I teach digression, I teach freedom, I teach breaking rules. But who can stray from me? I mean, it's hegemonic, it's impossible to stray from straying. I follow you whoever you are from the present hour, from here, in the sense we met earlier. My words itch at your ears till you understand them, Kristen? >> Well, now it's like he's ubiquitous. >> He's in your ear, he's talking to you. >> And it's kind what Ally was saying, he's going to be with you forever. >> It's impossible to stray from me. >> He's laying the seed for his grass. >> Straying is very powerful, in the same sense that Emily meant when she talked about the flood of the brain. Straying is the most powerful thing that we can do, letting the mind go freely where it wants to go, and that will never leave you once it's been open. Modernism comes from this, and we can never go back. There's no such thing anymore as unconscious pre-modernism. When someone chooses to write a traditional poem after modernism, they have to conscious of the fact that they're writing a traditional poem after an era in which the traditional poem was called into question. There is no going back, it's a Pandora's box. And finally Section 52, which I would like to read it to you in its entirely- >> [COUGH] >> And invite you to comment on. Someone, Annemarie's talk about, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. Not sure what you'll say about that, other than wow, that's a great line. >> [LAUGH] >> Dave, I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun. Kristen, I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love. If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles. And Ally, you will hardly know who I am or what I mean. And Anna, missing me one place, search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you. Here it is, 52, the spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable. I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world, the last scud of day holds back for me. It flings my likeness, after the rest, and true as any on the shadowed wilds, it coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun. I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love. If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, but I shall be good health to you nevertheless, and filter and fibre, your blood. Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged. Missing me one place, search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you. Therefore, I can't believe that I didn't assign a hawk coming by. But really what's happening there is the hawk is still complaining [NOISE] and the hawk is complaining about his loath, he's hysteric. Which is hilariously ironic, because it's very [NOISE] Okay, so I sound my barbaric who had that? >> That was me. >> Amyris? >> I interpreted it to be that he is giving in to this wild impulsive sort of primitive inner urge, and he's not giving into any sort of cultural climate that might be synonymous with conformity. >> Thus barbaric. >> And it's sort of a rallying call because you never find a word like yob in Dickenson's poems for example. It's definitely a celebration of the individual voice no matter how small it may seem. >> And also the voice published, shouting from the rooftop. >> Right, standing out from the crowd. >> A declaration. Who's got I depart as air? I think Dave does. If you don't have white locks, but shake your locks. >> [LAUGH] >> You don't want to do that. >> It's funny, I don't want to shake my locks. >> [LAUGH] Okay. >> He's in a sense leaving the physical world and becoming one with nature and much of the poem is about celebrating nature, and here he's in one sense, departing as air. He's shaking his locks too, so he's trying to be physical and non-physical at the same time. >> So, he's feeling rather free. He's also leaving the scene. He departs as air. Air, of course, is breathing. It's the poetic core. It's inspiration, like respiration. It's invention. And so he departs as air, he's in the air we breath. He's everywhere, he's ubiquitous. And there's that freedom in shaking his locks in it. I bequeath myself to the dirt. This is the legacy. Who's got this? >> I do. >> Kristan. Yeah, so it's "I bequeath myself to the dirt," it's kind of an 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust' image, and with "bequeath", it's really like he's giving himself up for us. It's kind of Godly, Jesus. >> Christlike, maybe. Yeah. >> Christlike, definitely. >> Wherever you want me, I'll be there. >> Yeah, and you just have to look for him in the dirt. Under your boots, also walking on me on the firmament. >> And also the under the grass is the book. So leaves of grass are here. Even though he is saying that he saying you shouldn't look to the things that were written in the past, it's kind of like paradoxical. >> He's saying you should read this book whenever you want to find me. And he's still there. Walt's still there. He has a powerful effect on us. We're all kind of in his sway. Maybe except for Anna, right now, no, you aren't this way. He's whispering in your ear. You hardly know who I am and what I mean. Who's got that? >> That's me. I think of this as being a very transcendental line. Because it kind of, it's kind of him saying like I will remain a mystery. But that doesn't really matter, because as long as you feel it, it doesn't matter if you know what I am, or who I am, or what I mean. >> The meaning that I am, is that you have to invest yourself in my subject position in order to know meaning. That's the meaning. >> And that search for meaning is the meaning. >> The search for meaning is the meaning. Very cool and self reverential and really joins Dickinson in that respect. And finally, is it Anna? Missing me one place, search another, I stop somewhere, waiting for you. Wonderful ending. >> Amazing ending, I think >> Well I think what makes this poem so successful, and like maybe we were talking about how like paradoxical it is, but like he's okay with the paradox. He's into the paradox. He wants there to be paradox. Because life is not straightforward. The world is not straightforward. Civilization's not straightforward so you have to embrace the paradox, and be okay with it. And I think this ending is kind of all about that. If you don't understand one thing keep going and you'll find another. And if you don't respond to one thing, keep going and you'll respond to another. >> Nice. >> I stopped somewhere waiting for you. This guy, he's got it all figured out. >> But he's also generous. He's saying, you know that notion of the relationship between author and authority. Which sort of hits it's peak in the 19th century in the omniscient novelist, the Dickens, the Tolstoy, the George Eliot, that kind of omissions starting from the 18th century in the novel tradition. And here we have a poet who standing against that tradition in a way, saying yeah, I've got all that confidence and ego. But really what I'm about is enabling you. I'm about being there, when you need me, I'll be there. There's a certain self-abnegation and generosity of spirit that's just underneath that you get to in Walt Whitman.
