Yes to Whitman!

 

Whitman was always one of my favorite poets to teach.  Why?  Several reasons.

He was a Quaker.   My maternal grandparents and great-grandparents plus everyone on the Cattell side of the family were Quakers.  I remember going to the Society of Friends church services and to the Yearly Meeting at the Friends Meeting House.  I attended church camp at Quaker Canyon.  My cousins did not volunteer for military service; specifically none of them were drafted for the Vietnam War because they were conscientious objectors.  Walt did not fight on either side, the North or the South, during the Civil War for that very reason.  Instead he became a nurse and helped care for the wounded.

"O Captain!  My Captain" is one of my favorite poems. My mother claims that I burst into a recitation of those lines during a family party once.  I don't remember it, but she claims it happened.  Funny thing is...no one else remembers it either. I think she dreamed it.

I wrote in a previous post about Dead Poets Society and the connection to Whitman, but that is not the only reason I like this particular poem.  The extended metaphor between the captain and President Lincoln is striking.  It is one that is extremely easy to read, to understand, and to teach.  Lincoln is one of my favorite Presidents, and I have always enjoyed our trips to Gettysburg, first as a child with my parents and sister, then with both daughters on their 8th grade school field trips, then most recently with my husband, our oldest daughter and her husband during the summer of 2011.

How ironic that in today's news was a commemoration of the anniversary of Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg. 

Walt Whitman --- one of a kind.