Walt Whitman remains a fascinating writer due to his unique and transcendental writing and audacious personality. He read many books as a teenager and mostly taught himself how to write. At 21, he became a full-time journalist and published his own weekly newspaper before working as a newspaper editor for many publications. In 1855, Whitman wrote his famous Leaves of Grass preface and poems, which he self-published. The work is full of spiritual ideas and Whitman comes across as a prophet, elaborating on how to live and think in a way never heard of before or since. That got me thinking, what three ideas can we learn from Whitman that could help us become better writers.
1. Self-Confidence
While self-confidence is not something easily learned, many of us have the skills needed to succeed but lack the confidence to use these abilities. Whitman is unique in the sense he traverses the border between arrogance and confidence, which is surely natural.
Whitman was so confident in his abilities that he self-published his work because he knew it was good and worthy of being read. He wanted to teach people a better way to live, to shape the American identity the way he believed it should be formed. So confident was Whitman in his work that he sent a first edition copy of Leaves of Grass to the renowned “celebrity” author, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Think about this for a moment, would you send your work to whomever is the best person in your field right now? For instance, would you send your screenplay to Steven Spielberg or James Cameron? Would you send your electric vehicle to Elon Musk? You’d have to be pretty sure or rather insane to even think of let alone do such a thing. But Whitman did! Here is a copy of the letter:
Emerson was so impressed and astonished by Whitman’s work that he wrote a letter praising Whitman, calling it a “wonderful gift.” He also said, which surely constitutes no greater praise, “I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.”
As non-Whitman’s, we should have the writing skills to back up what we say. Once we have that, we should be confident in our confident. It should come across in our writing, revealing itself as our unique voices. Whitman’s voice comes across like no other poet or writer I have read. Maybe I prefer other’s writing, perhaps I think their ideas are better. But I have never read a work like Whitman’s, one that is emotional, positive, pretentious, purposeful. One that flows so smoothly from one idea to the next that reading it almost feels like a spiritual experience. Whitman even begins his first poem, Song of Myself, with “I celebrate myself.”
We may not be Whitman’s but we can certainly learn to be more confident with our writing, and indeed confident in ourselves in general.
2. Motivation
Connected to the idea of self-confidence is that we need to have something that motivates us to write, something that makes us want to do nothing but write. Whitman’s motivation was to define what it was to be American, a rather bold and confident idea but one he clearly took to heart.
Finding motivation to write is not always easy, though it seemed to come easy for Whitman. George Orwell, for instance, says in his essay, Why I Write, that he always knew he “should be a writer.” When he tried to avoid this endeavour from the age of 17 to 24, he knew it went against his “true nature” and that it was inevitable he would eventually “have to settle down and write books.”
Not all of us have such a strong innate inkling to become writers, published or otherwise. Fewer of us have the inclination to write for the sole sake of influencing an entire nation like Whitman did. But as writers we need to have purpose behind our writing. Maybe your motivation is to inspire others through your blog. Perhaps it’s to promote a product you believe in through advertising copy.
The boldest motivation of all is perhaps to write for the sake of writing itself, to write because you cannot live without doing so or simply to write because you want to write. The simplest but most complex motive is to write a journal, because it that represents you and you alone. A journal is something personal, powerful, emotional, so much so you’d probably be very ashamed if anyone got hold of it. You don’t need to be a Whitman or an Orwell to write a journal, needn’t be a poet either. But journaling can be very therapeutic regardless of how good you write. The more you read, as Whitman did, the better you will be able to write.
I know perfectly well my own egotism,
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, Leaves of Grass
And know my omniverous words, and cannot say any less,
And would fetch you whoever you are flush with myself.
Whitman also journaled, but if you ask me, Song of Myself seems so personal and so spiritual that it reads like a personal diary. In fact, Whitman’s letters like that those to Emerson also feel very personal, as if Whitman has the confidence and motivation to share his innermost thoughts and opinions with others. He did that so well, it got him in trouble. Many at the time of publishing in 1855 until long after found Leaves of Grass obscene and overly sensual, and its homoerotic connotations are edgy even by today’s standards for many people.
3. Write In A Style That Represents “Them”?
We are long past the days of strict rules and regulations governing how we should and should not write. Some people still object to the use of they instead of him or her when referring to a single person. For example, “one might not want their writing to be considered offensive” rather than “he might not want their writing to be offensive.” But in a world of feminism, such phrasing, in cases where the “he” refers to people is considered offensive. But English lacks a common-gender third person singular pronoun.
Merriam Webster Dictionary quotes a letter by the famous American female poet, Emily Dickinson, who circumvented this lack of pronoun:
Almost anyone under the circumstances would have doubted if [the letter] were theirs, or indeed if they were themself.
Emily Dickinson via Merriam Webster Dictionary
To further prove my point about how language is still restrictive for writers not willing to be themselves, look at what Google thinks of Dickinson’s word choice. Thought I will say it doesn’t mind “themselves” in place of “themself.”
As little as only four days ago on September 23, 2019, Merriam Webster Dictionary added “they” as a nonbinary (gender neutral or non-gender specific) pronoun, Ma. It describes people without using their gender, as Dickinson attempted, or people who do not identify as either male or female.
So screw it, be like Whitman or even Dickinson and use whatever words you deem fit, whether they cause offense or not. Don’t wait for words to be added to the dictionary either. I mean just imagine how many common colloquialisms we use that are found nowhere but Urban Dictionary, which is technically a dictionary but that’s beside the point. To paraphrase the new “they” definition, this “binary” thinking where we see the world from opposing viewpoints with nothing in between limits creativity and imagination.
If you think of a word or phrase that you know makes sense but may be different than common writing or even societal conventions then use it. I mean you should probably check with a friend to make certain its understandable but if “they” think it is then use it, own it, make it a thing. If people find if offensive then let them. Just think of the last time someone wasn’t offended in this world, someone close to you or around you, online or offline. I bet you can’t remember if there ever was such a time.
Whitman’s way of thinking was to write what he thought fit, and I think it requires the aforementioned confidence and motivation to be pulled if in such eloquent fashion as Whitman achieves.
In the stanza below, Whitman reveals an unexpected motivation behind his writing but what that went against many conventions of poetic writing at the time.
Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos,
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, Leaves of Grass
Disorderly fleshy and sensual . . . . eating drinking and breeding,
No sentimentalist . . . . no stander above men and women or apart from them . . . . no
more modest than immodest.
Whitman calls himself “a kosmos,” which means “the sum total of everything,” according to Vocabulary.com. A pretty bold statement to make when the Christian God calls himself Alpha and Omega, meaning everything from A to Z. People in 2019 would find that offensive in 2019 let alone 1855. But Whitman also states his flaws, that he is “fleshy and sensual” and that he is “no more modest than immodest.” He appears to be saying that he is a messenger of a message greater than himself as a flawed human, that he is no different than others, that his ideas come from the universe and thus apply to everyone.
Poets also rarely identify themselves in their poetry but Whitman did, so I wonder what Roland Barthes might have thought of that. Anyway, Whitman’s use of repetition throughout the poem along with his free verse style broke many conventions at the time but that didn’t stop him. If anything, he probably chose to broke them simply because they existed.
But there is a purpose behind them, as suggested with his use of the ellipsis, also found throughout the poem. It seems as if he is so enthusiastic that he cannot contain himself, which can also be seen in the way he often lists words as seen in the quote below. It feels like he is out of breath but continues anyway because poetry can say what speech cannot. Ellipses are used to reveal that words were omitted. In Whitman’s case, ellipses suggest that he cannot express what he wants to or that the ideas contained between them transcend human understanding. So again, if you are going to do something different, make sure there is a purpose behind it.
Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, Leaves of Grass
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
As a further example, just look at Whitman’s unique style and thoughts in another short stanza:
Whoever degrades another degrades me . . . . and whatever is done or said returns at last
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, Leaves of Grass
to me,
And whatever I do or say I also return.
Whoever degrades another degrades me . . . . and whatever is done or said returns at last to me,
And whatever I do or say I also return.
His style evokes biblical nuances with its repetition and phrasing. It seems like Whitman has somehow understood a universal truth about “degradation” and tolerance that can be better expressed by alluding to the bible. After all he was writing to an American and predominant Christian audience, but at the same time him expressing this non-Christian ideas using biblical phrasing might be considered offensive even today. But Whitman clearly did not care because to him, his message was greater than whatever came before it.
Whitman broke with conventions in other ways too, such as his sexual references that even today are edgy for some people:
Thruster holding me tight and that I hold tight!
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, Leaves of Grass
We hurt each other as the bridegroom and the bride hurt each other.
He gets edgier by even today standard’s considering the intolerance towards homosexuality seen worldwide:
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, Leaves of Grass
Likewise, Whitman’s sensual depictions of men caused offense during his lifetime, such as:
His blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over his hip-band, His glance is calm and commanding, he tosses the slouch of his hat away from his forehead, The sun falls on his crispy hair and mustache, falls on the black of his polish’d and perfect limbs.
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, Leaves of Grass
Whitman had a unique style, one he owned, a distinctive characteristic that can never be repeated because he both cared and did not care what others thought of his writing. He cared to share a new way of thinking but was no ashamed to do it, as aspects like sexuality are only natural. In a sense, he paved the way for the increased openness in expressions of thought we can exercise and experience today.
Writing Is You
My point is, if you have an idea, a theory, a concept, or simply want to write how you view some aspect of the universe, don’t be afraid to do so no matter what. Whitman didn’t care and here we are 164 years later talking about that very aspect of his writing and personality. Your thoughts, idea, they’re all yours to use as you see fit. Here is a massive list of books banned by governments from around the world, most of which were censored a long time ago, few which were censored in the 2000s. Write about what you want to write about, write what the world needs to hear, whether what’s how great your new business is or about some fictitious world set on a planet far from here.
We live in a different world today compared to Whitman’s time, one that is more open to new ideas, a world needing expressions of ideas that were not allowed to be uttered until recently. That requires self-confidence, motivation and a style that represents you, as we learned from Whitman.
Perhaps it’s time for us all to express what appears inexpressible. But most of all, write in a technique that is yours and you will stand out from every other in a way that will make them listen to what you have to say. After all, unless you’re writing a private journal, you’re writing for them as much as you are for you.
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