Walt Whitman, on writing:

The secret of it all, is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment – to put things down without deliberation – without worrying about their style – without waiting for a fit time or place. I always worked that way. I took the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk, and wrote – wrote, wrote…By writing at the instant the very heartbeat of life is caught.

- Walt Whitman.

Born on this day – Walt Whitman:

Walt Whitman

Writer

May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892

Poems:

1861; A Boston Ballad, 1854; A child said, What is the grass?; A Child's Amaze; A Clear Midnight; A Farm-Picture; A Glimpse; A Hand-Mirror; A Leaf For Hand In Hand; A March In The Ranks, Hard-prest; A Noiseless Patient Spider; A Paumanok Picture; A Proadway Pageant; A Promise To California; A Riddle Song; A Sight In Camp; A Song; A Woman Waits For Me; Aboard At A Ship's Helm; Adieu To A Soldier; After The Sea-Ship; Ages And Ages, Returning At Intervals; Ah Poverties, Wincings Sulky Retreats; All Is Truth; American Feuillage; Among The Multitude; An Army Corps On The March; Apostroph; As A Strong Bird On Pinious Free; As Consequent, Etc.; As I Ebb'd With the Ocean of Life; As I lay With Head In Your Lap, Camerado; As I Lay With My Head in Your Lap, Camerado; As I Ponder'd In Silence; As I Ponder'd In Silence; As I Sat Alone By Blue Ontario's Shores; As I Walk These Broad, Majestic Days; As I Watche'd The Ploughman Ploughing; As If A Phantom Caress'd Me; As The Time Draws Nigh; As Toilsome I Wander'd; As toilsome I wander'd Virginia's woods; assurances; Bathed In War's Perfume; Beat! Beat! Drums!; Beautiful Women; Beginners; Beginning My Studies; Behavior; Behold This Swarthy Face; Bivouac on a Mountain Side; Brother Of All, With Genesrous Hand; By Broad Potomac's Shore; By The Bivouac's Fitful Flame; Camps Of Green; Carol Of Occupations; Carol Of Words; Cavalry Crossing A Ford; Chanting The Square Deific; City Of Ships; Come Up From the Fields Father; Come Up From The Fields, Father; Come, Said My Soul; Crossing Brooklyn Ferry; Darest Thou Now O Soul; Darest Thou Now, O Soul; Debris; Delicate Cluster; Delicate Cluster; Despairing Cries; Dirge For Two Veterans; Drum-Taps; Earth! my Likeness!; Elemental Drifts; Europe, The 72d And 73d Years Of These States; Excelsior; Faces Facing West From California's Shores; France, The 18th Year Of These States; From Pent-up Aching Rivers; Full Of Life, Now; Give Me The Splendid, Silent Sun; God; Great Are The Myths; Had I the Choice; Here The Frailest Leaves Of Me; Hush'd Be the Camps Today; I Am He That Aches With Love; I Dream'd In A Dream; I Hear America Singing; I Heard You, Solemn-sweep Pipes Of The Organ; I Saw In Louisiana A Live Oak Growing; I Sing The Body Electric; I Sit And Look Out; I Thought I Was Not Alone; I Was Looking A Long While; In Cabin'd Ships At Sea; In Former Songs; In Midnight Sleep; Italian Music In Dakota; Joy, Shipmate, Joy!; Laws For Creations; Leaves Of Grass. A Carol Of Harvest For 1867; Lessons; Locations And Times; Long, Too Long America; Long, Too Long, O Land!; Look Down, Fair Moon; Manhattan Streets I Saunter'd, Pondering; Mannahatta; Me Imperturbe; Mediums; Miracles; Mother And Babe; Myself And Mine; Native Moments; Night On The Prairies; No Labor-Saving Machine; Not The Pilot; Now Finale To The Shore; Now List To My Morning's Romanza; O Bitter Sprig! Confession Sprig!; O Captain! My Captain!; O Hymen! O Hymenee!; O Living Always--Always Dying; O Me! O Life!; O Star Of France; O Sun Of Real Peace; O You Whom I Often And Silently Come; Of Him I Love Day And Night; Of The Terrible Doubt Of Apperarances; Of The Visage Of Things; Offerings; Old Ireland; On Journeys Through The States; On Old Man's Thought Of School; On The Beach At Night; On the Beach At Night Alone; On The Beach At Night, Alone; Once I Pass'd Through A Populous City; One Hour To Madness And Joy; One Song, America, Before I Go; One's Self I Sing; Or From That Sea Of Time; Or From That Sea Of Time; Other May Praise What They Like; Out From Behind His Mask; Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking; Out of the Rolling Ocean, The Crowd; Over The Carnage; Passage To India; Pensive And Faltering; Pensive On Her Dead Gazing, I Heard The Mother Of All; Perfections; Pioneers! O Pioneers!; Poem Of Remembrance For A Girl Or A Boy; Poems Of Joys; Portals; President Lincoln's Burial Hymn; Primeval My Love For The Woman I Love; Proud Music Of The Storm; Quicksand Years; Race Of Veterans; Reconciliation; Recorders Ages Hence; Respondez!; Rise, O Days; Roots And Leaves Themselves Alone; Salut Au Monde; Says; Scented Herbage Of My Breast; Sea-Shore Memories; Sing Of The Banner At Day-Break; So Long; Sometimes With One I Love; Song At Sunset; Song For All Seas, All Ships; Song of Myself, X; Song Of The Broad-Axe; Song Of The Exposition; Song Of The Open Road; Song Of The Redwood-Tree; Song Of The Universal; Souvenirs Of Democracy; Spirit Whose Work Is Done; Spontaneous Me; Starting From Paumanok; States!; That Music Always Round Me; The Artilleryman's Vision; The Base Of All Metaphysics; The Centerarian's Story; The Dresser; The Indications; The Last Invocation; The Mystic Trumpeter; The Prairie-Grass Dividing; The Singer In The Prison; The Sleepers; The World Below The Brine; The Wound Dresser; There Was A Child Went Forth; These, I, Singing In Spring; This Compost; This Dust Was Once The Man; Thou Orb Aloft Full-Dazzling; Thou Reader; Thought; Thoughts; To A Certain Cantatrice; To A Foil'd European Revolutionaire; To A Historian; To A President; To Old Age; To Rich Givers; To The East And To The West; To The Garden The World; To The Man-of-War-Bird; To Thee, Old Cause!; To Think Of Time; To You; Unfolded Out Of The Folds; Unnamed Lands; Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field one Night; Virgil Strange I Kept On The Field; Virginia--The West; Voices; Walt Whitman's Caution; Wandering At Morn; Warble Of Lilac-Time; We Two Boys Together Clinging; We Two-How Long We Were Fool'd; Weave In, Weave In, My Hardy Life; What Am I, After All?; What Weeping Face; When I Heard At The Close Of The Day; When I Heard the Learned Astronomer; When I Peruse The Conquer'd Fame; When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd; Who Is Now Reading This?; Who Learns My Lesson Complete?; Whoever You Are, Holding Me Now In Hand; With Antecedents; World, Take Good Notice; Year Of Meteors, 1859 '60; Year That Trembled; Years Of The Modern; Yet, Yet, Ye Downcast Hours.

Movies and television:

A Noiseless Patient Spider (2009); A Poetic Experiment: Walt Whitman (2015); A su aire (1974); Actor's Choice (1970); Aliment Roots (2018); American Experience (2008); Amerikai anzix (1975); Amici Novum (2021); Ancient Aliens (2011); Beyond the Unknown (2019); Calamus Variations (2024); David Byrne's American Utopia (2020); Dead Poets Society (1989); Drum-Taps (2019); Facing West (2020); Intolerance (1916); Lo que cuento al viento (2008); Los 10 magníficos (2008); Maestro (2023); Manahatta (2011); Manhatta (1921); Messengers (2004); Middle Voices (2022); O Brooklyn! My Brooklyn! (2010); On the Trail of Mark Twain (1998); Plain-chant (1974); The Big Scary 'S' Word (2020); The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell (2016); This Is What You Shall Do (2017); Walt Whitman: Poet for a New Age (1971); Whitman in the Woods. (2021); Your Favorite Story (1954).

Contribute a verse:

On the recent anniversary of what would have been the late-actor Robin Williams’ birthday, I was asked my favorite of his movies.
I’m a fan of much of his work, but of all his movies my favorite is Dead Poets Society (1989).
As a tribute, I quote this inspirational scene:

We don't read and write poetry because it's cute.

We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion.

And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life.

But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.

To quote from Whitman:

"O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?"

Answer: that you are here, that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.

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

What will your verse be?