I was in a class about teaching writing today, and this came out as an answer to a prompt made of four words: sand, gold, blind, sea.
These words reminded me of Whitman’s poem “Starting from Paumanok,” where the lyrical voice speaks of an idyllic landscape, a not so idyllic family life, and the longing he-bird who cries for something greater than himself, perhaps the femme democracy, as its voice echoes into the infinite landscape and into the boy’s heart.
First published as in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, with its contents divided between “Proto-Leaf” and “Reminiscence”,1 “Starting from Paumanok” is a song to the speaker’s dream-like childhood scenario, and the shadows that haunt it, as well as a play on “on the two themes of “Love” and “Democracy”” (Ivan Marki).
As my research focuses on Whitman and race, the prompt also reminded me of Lucifer, one of the most striking characters of the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. Voicing the pain and impotence of the enslaved man whose life is objectified, whose autonomy is violated, and whose family ties are perverted and defiled, Lucifer represents the very humanity of enslaved Blacks, so often overlooked, so often denied, and sidelined in favor of the economic gain of their traffickers and owners.2
This is how I imagine Lucifer might write back to Whitman, not as a demon, but as a very human, sentient, and agent man confronting his poetic creator and, in so doing, taking on the system that dehumanizes him.
***
To you I write, gray bearded good old friend, Whose feet walked naked on the sandy shores of Paumanok, and then, listening to the love song of the birds by the golden sea, grew blind to the toils of people like me.
Black devil, you said, plotting death, you claimed, whose blood is as read as mine, you sang, with a heart, and a soul, and a mind of his own.
Why did you create me this, ancient father, cruel tyrant, why did you breathe life into me, and brains, and courage, and a will to overturn your world?
You erased me, as if I never was. Tore me out of the pages where I lived. Stroke me through with your dagger-like pen. Why, oh why, did you allow me to dream sublime dreams of freedom, only to fetter me, and silence my cry, and drag me into dark oblivion?
- For further information about “Starting from Paumanok,” please see the entry “Starting from Paumanok” (1860), by Ivan Marki, at The Walt Whitman Archive here. The 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass, is available online at The Walt Whitman Archive here. ↩︎
- For further information about the Lucifer passage, its composition and erasure, please see Ed Folsom’s entry “THE SLEEPERS” AND RACE” in his wider work WALT WHITMAN’S “THE SLEEPERS”, available online here. ↩︎
The (In) Famous Academic 