More Whitman

Still trucking into Walt Whitman's epically long poem "Song of Myself":

" This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger,
It is for the wicked just same as the righteous, I make appointments
with all,
I will not have a single person slighted or left away,
The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited,
The heavy-lipp'd slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;
There shall be no difference between them and the rest.

This is the press of a bashful hand, this the float and odor of
hair,
This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning,
This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face,
This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again.

Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?
Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the
side of a rock has.

Do you take it I would astonish?
Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering
through the woods?
Do I astonish more than they?

This hour I tell things in confidence,
I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you."

-Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself" Section 19

Need to go down to Kinko's to see if getting prints of my larger digital works is worth the cost but I haven't gotten around to it. Senior show is looming as well as FWMoA members show...

Inspiration Resolution

I really enjoy reading Nathan Abel's art blog (http://nathanabels.blogspot.com/) because he manages to post profusely about his inspirations and you can really see how they relate to his own work which is endlessly interesting. So, I'm going to start trying to do that more often myself.

I stumbled upon and begun reading Walt Whitman's 52 section poem: "Song of Myself". It contains a lot of transcendentalism as well as inspiring bits and pieces all relating to his own feeling of his place in this universe and his body's oneness with nature. Although there are many lines each and every one of them are immensely powerful. I've read up to part 12 and will continue to try to do at least 10 each day. Here's a bit of my favorite (2):

"Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with
perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the
distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz'd whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and
vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing
of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and
dark-color'd sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,"

-Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"