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Saturday 4 July 2015

Saturday Rave. Song of Myself 35. Walt Whitman

It's the 4th of July* and HERE is a poem from the USA's National Poet.

Well, one of the USA's National Poets...

Walt Whitman finished his formal schooling at the age of eleven, and then became successively (more or less) a printer, teacher, printer, teacher, journalist, editor, poet, military nurse, poet, civil servant, journalist and poet.

He described himself as: "Walt Whitman, one of the roughs, a kosmos, disorderly, fleshly, and sensual, no sentimentalist, no slander above men or women or apart from them, no more modest than immodest."

Walt Whitman - George Collins Cox.jpg

He hasn't described himself as a poet, there, has he. 

I really think he should have.

Word To Use Today: walt. This word can either mean beaten clay, or it can describe an unsteady ship or something else to do with falling over, throwing, or tottering. It comes from the Middle High German walzen, to roll or revolve.

*The reason we in England don't celebrate the USA's Independence Day is that, if you consider its history, it would be really rather rude. Wouldn't it?


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