Personal Project: YouTubing Whitman II — Selections of "Calamus"

(Finally, after annoying technical issues, here it is!)

I decided to take on the challenge of editing videos. Thanks to the support from my friends who helped me not only as actors but also for providing me with resources that gave me access to great sound and editing! I selected a few passages from "Calamus" and attempted to give a visual portrayal on those with plenty of imagery to follow up on.

So. To get into the production of the video and some thoughts.

Anthony Ghadieh. Best friend since the beginning of elementary school. He so happens to have been a Walt Whitman fan even before I heard much of the poet beyond mere mention in anthologies. He usually already even has a grizzly look going on, but still I was happy to hear that he was willing to take on the role as my subject for the project—bonus points for his experience in acting in school plays and musicals.

Sophia Sarnicola. Another best friend of mine, though we met at a later time during middle school years. In addition to being an awesome poet, she's also a great artist, musician (who plays the drums, cello, guitar, and bass), graphic designer, everything. Her experience with recording sound (not to mention her killer collection of equipment that includes a $100+ microphone) and also directing and editing videos was pretty much a beautiful package of awesome I needed to learn how to manage my own project. Plus, she makes for a great companion for my Whitmanian friend.

Myron Lam. Yet a third of my best friends whom I've had the pleasure of meeting in elementary school. Though he is away at UCI, he's taken his time to help Sophia and I fix our video issues and going over steps to not only solve the problem, but to also take part in fixing up the corrupt files. While he did not take part in the development of the project, nonetheless, he's just as much of a big help to me as my other two buddies. With his expertise in computers and experiences creating and editing videos (among his many other talents in classical music and composition) I couldn't ask for a better person to help me out.

As for myself, thanks to work experience as an intern for YBCA (in San Francisco) for the YAAW program and for the RYSE center in Richmond as a member of ArtsChange, I know how to create basic storyboards for how to plan out recording videos and set up stage directions, if you will.

The four of us have all attended the same elementary school (Ohlone Elementary in Hercules, CA) and, from time to time, we hang out in this hidden forest that hides behind our school's park. A handful of people know about it (boo to tagging on trees) but it's the perfect location to get many of the nature and isolation imagery found in "Calamus."

A lot of the detailed imagery is based on the forest—the location of isolation. Nature happens to be the main source of Whitman's imagery in all of his poems—even in his Specimen Days entries. Fortunate to have some sort of forest nearby, even though I was with friends shooting scenes, it's amazing how even then, there's only nature and it's openness—it's a world outside of time and the hustle and bustle of other human beings. There's even a sense of comfort to be beheld from Mother Nature as anything that takes place within the green and trees is practically secretive—mum's the word, I figure, and it makes me think of the "dark mother" found in "Lilacs". The primordial world revolves around the power of the female mother's of the Earth. Nature is the closest thing to pure cosmos and understanding the true world (over "seeing" to "believe), despite the fact that such knowledge is perhaps unobtainable to the human mind. Still, Whitman takes on this quest and finds it in the nearest and most available portal into the origins of Gaea. Even if the rest of the world shuns one, one typically can return to the arms of their mothers (Gaea) and feel better. But definitely, the fresh, green, aromatic, and overall natural feel of the forest imagery is not only a perfect, ideal world for Whitman, but also the fantasy realm the speaker of "Calamus" can escape into until he is ready to take on the (contrasting) industrialized, consumer-based, and conformist society. It's something interesting to me that there is definitely a lack of sensual images compared to those of nature.

I tried to get more light pouring in in later readings to signify the changing tone of the poem as the speaker rises to the occasion and learns to step out from his self-exile and back into the world where he openly expresses himself and his love for comrades—a moment of epiphanies and revelations. I found it hard to visualize the metaphors beyond the forest, and so I thought that the subtle lighting could at least present this, though, looking back, it's hard to say that the lighting was completely controlled (ain't no one tell the Sun what to do).

...

In the end, I really am happy to have had taken this class. As a first-year student at SFSU, it's refreshing to have gone outside of the usual classroom feel of high school and experience the hybrid of an online/in person class. I especially enjoy the fact that, rather than just writing formal responses to Whitman and turning in essays, class sessions were discussions where we can give our thoughts and feedback and overall have a full-on conversation about poetry—which I feel like is a great way to talk about something that isn't necessarily confined to one interpretation. It was also helpful to get some historical background information pertaining to the world of Walt Whitman, as that gave more dimension to his poetry (and how we read it according to his time and our own). Perhaps the title of the course should be changed to avoid garnering disappointed Frost fans. Then again, it's a cool way to have them embrace and get in contact with Whitman, despite false advertising, haha!

Guthrie and Whitman: Of Art and Politics

I guess to sort of go back into what I said during the Sandburg lecture, I recall learning in my Fables and Tales class that a lot of folklore and fables were written in times of social upheaval and change. Interestingly, a lot of these stories were written by people who were not of the reigning upper class. Aesop, for example, was a slave from Samos. Marie de France, a famous medieval poet, was a woman who wrote poems that defied the standards and traditions of the Church and ultimately gave women a more prominent stance, among other things. Many poets and artists use their craft to speak otherwise (in cases that threaten their lives) or to speak out loud to convey their perspectives of the world around them.

With that said, there are even many modern mediums of art that directly correlate to politics. A visual art example that can be considered is the famous image of Barack Obama of "Hope", designed by Shepard Fairey. It's become this iconic image that we associate with the election of our first black president—and that holds significance to many people, albeit for many different reasons. To go away from visual art, there's also the popular medium of spoken word poetry that includes youth and adults alike reciting lyrical and personal accounts that can often times call out to a large issue at hand.


Whitman represents the people via cataloging and listing. He calls upon the "greasy or pimpled—or that you was once drunk, or a thief, or diseased, or rheumatic, or a prostitute—or are so now—or from frivolity or impotence—or that you are no scholar, and never saw your name in print" in "Song of Occupations" and many more in "Song of the Open Road". Guthrie, on the other hand, does not specify, but I feel like he is just as inclusive by not doing so. The"migrants" of "Pastures of Plenty" and the "people" of "This Land is Your Land" are given context as being people deprived of their home(land) and being driven to labor for what they ought to already have. In a way, I can't help but think about how political figures want to specify and include as many demographic appeals as possible in gathering for support in regards to Whitman, but it's more of a comparison as to how each seek to reach out for their audience. As for Guthrie, besides being, to me, anyway, a parallel of the generality of music and its structure, he appeals to the masses without defining (risking exclusion) of those he hopes to speak for; it's clear that the farmers and migrants of the Great Depression are being described in the given text and, regardless of who they are, they are included in among a specific genus (rather than listed as many species, if you will follow this brief and strange word choice).


For Whitman, because he is a performer and a poet, among many, many other roles, he is similar to the modern day spoken word poet in that his poetry calls for more than just reading words off of a page. It calls for the audience to listen to someone who wants to share an experience, to connect with what he wants to say, and, ultimately, someone who desires for some change to take place. It's even obvious in many of his works' titles that he is emulating a song—spoken word poetry that flows through free verse and, in essence, free speech. Guthrie takes the "song" a bit further (and albeit a bit more traditionally) by creating and reciting lyrical works and music that project the ill effects of the Great Depression that are inflicted upon "the migrants".

Ginsberg and Whitman

(Of personal note, I want to explore both of the poems in one question each, bringing them together for the final question -- otherwise, I would feel like I could not come to share my full thoughts on either in regards to the specific questions)

1. Ginsburg's "Howl" follows a pattern on lines that maintain a steady rhythm. The repetition of "who" within the structure of the poem connotes the title's act of "howling" or "yawping" -- it's a speech and a performance that seeks to express a higher message to its audience as it represents the people. Like Whitman, Ginsburg uses his poem "to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head" ("Howl"). The "who", then, becomes the counterpart of "you" as the pronoun that brings in the reader, the people, as its subject. Unlike Whitman, however, Ginsburg focuses more on the "the best minds of my generation" as he lists out the many, many different characteristics and features that make up who they are and the experiences they encounter as "outcasts" of a capitalistic and conformist society. Also, each section that starts with who appears to have a sort of "beat" or rhythm to it as there's a momentum that leads the musicality to what sounds like iambic meter. Here, then, the syntax and form of the poem is more formal and in control as opposed to the free verse of Whitman that possessed its own varied rhythm and poetic feet. Nevertheless, especially after listening to Ginsburg read the poem, there is a speech-like, epic poetry style that can be traced to Whitman's style of performing his words, bending the role of poetry beyond paper -- beyond the standard, but distant relationship between reader and poet.

2. I thought I read "A Supermarket in California" somewhere recently, and it turned out that I took a look at it for the Whitman in Pop Culture assignment! Anyway, with some focus on the poem, one theme Ginsburg and Whitman share that stood out to me the most was the concept of isolation versus finding comradeship. The poem starts out with the speaker thinking of Whitman on a night stroll "with a headache subconscious". All the while, he notices Walt, "childless, lonely old grubber". When the two depart together, "solitary" is repeated a few times; their time together somehow does not erase the fact that "the trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely". Strangely, the all-embracing, intimate, and sensual Whitman seems to resemble the questioning, solemn Whitman of "Calamus". Going back to the title, it's as if the two men are observing from their distant, secluded place but also making a visit to the more open and populated supermarket where there are the most interactions made. Even more far-out is the reference to the ancient Greek Underworld and how the character of Whitman actually watched the ferryman of the Underworld steer the boat in a realm beyond human means. Perhaps Ginsburg hopes to evoke a sense of Whitman's situations of comradeship tending to thrive as outcasts of society, but needs to be openly expressed an shared -- though in Ginsburg's case it would be more subversive. To go more into the Greek mythology, I believe the River Lethe's waters cause forgetfulness. Could that suggest a desire to forget the rest of the world and remain in exile? Or rather, there is probably no choice -- otherwise, the two characters would have to conform to the unwilling society that rejects their camaraderie.

3. Ginsberg, a radical thinker of his time, voiced his thoughts and ideas through his poetry. As an opponent of capitalism and conformity, he writes as means to stir social unrest. Moreover, Ginsburg "the man" does not overextend as the main focus of each of these two poems -- in "Howl", he narrates and describes the stories of the outcasts who cannot openly express themselves while in "A Supermarket in California", he "interacts" with his muse representation of Whitman who serves as a representation of these similar outcasts. The poet, then, serves as the voice of these oppressed people and calls for reform.