Uploaded June 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Here's a virtual movie of the great Walt Whitman reading "Starting from Paumanok" The native American Indian name for for Long Island “Starting from Paumanok” first appeared in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass and was modified several times. The final version is that of the 1881 edition. This poem is Whitman’s literary manifesto, an elaborate and often confounding statement of his poetic project. Whitman intends to quite literally start from Paumanok (a Native American name for Long Island, New York), the place of his birth. He will journey forth geographically as well as philosophically, and his travels will qualify him to “strike up for a New World”: to lose himself in the maelstrom of American life and become the first truly American poet.
“Starting from Paumanok” delineates poetic materials as well as principles. Whitman dictates not only how but what he will write, in his lengthy lists of place-names, people, machines, and actions. The lists contained in this poem are a good example of Whitman’s ability to encode meaning in form. By listing without analyzing, by refusing to subject his materials to linguistic devices such as metaphor, Whitman creates a more democratic form of poetry, in which not even the almighty poet himself has pride of place. The voice of the poet submerges and surfaces at odd intervals, losing itself in a list at one moment only to trumpet forth a series of proclamations the next. This suggests a loss of control, but also freedom. Whitman wants to catalogue, not master.
Commentary
Whitman makes several major statements about the purpose of poetry in this piece. The first comes at the beginning of the sixth section, when he proclaims that he “will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the most spiritual poems, / And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality, / For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my soul and of immortality.” Here Whitman questions several traditional assumptions about poetry. Transcendence, universality of emotion, and immortality have long been considered the basis of poetry: good verse, previous generations of poets have proclaimed, situates itself outside its time and place, and through the common ground of human experience ensures immortality for itself and its author. Whitman wants to stand this premise on end. Only by capturing his specific moment and— importantly—a sense of his physical self can he write poetry that achieves a maximum intellectual and spiritual content.
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2015
Here's a virtual movie of the great Walt Whitman reading "Starting from Paumanok" The native American Indian name for for Long Island “Starting from Paumanok” first appeared in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass and was modified several times. The final version is that of the 1881 edition. This poem is Whitman’s literary manifesto, an elaborate and often confounding statement of his poetic project. Whitman intends to quite literally start from Paumanok (a Native American name for Long Island, New York), the place of his birth. He will journey forth geographically as well as philosophically, and his travels will qualify him to “strike up for a New World”: to lose himself in the maelstrom of American life and become the first truly American poet.
“Starting from Paumanok” delineates poetic materials as well as principles. Whitman dictates not only how but what he will write, in his lengthy lists of place-names, people, machines, and actions. The lists contained in this poem are a good example of Whitman’s ability to encode meaning in form. By listing without analyzing, by refusing to subject his materials to linguistic devices such as metaphor, Whitman creates a more democratic form of poetry, in which not even the almighty poet himself has pride of place. The voice of the poet submerges and surfaces at odd intervals, losing itself in a list at one moment only to trumpet forth a series of proclamations the next. This suggests a loss of control, but also freedom. Whitman wants to catalogue, not master.
Commentary
Whitman makes several major statements about the purpose of poetry in this piece. The first comes at the beginning of the sixth section, when he proclaims that he “will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the most spiritual poems, / And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality, / For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my soul and of immortality.” Here Whitman questions several traditional assumptions about poetry. Transcendence, universality of emotion, and immortality have long been considered the basis of poetry: good verse, previous generations of poets have proclaimed, situates itself outside its time and place, and through the common ground of human experience ensures immortality for itself and its author. Whitman wants to stand this premise on end. Only by capturing his specific moment and— importantly—a sense of his physical self can he write poetry that achieves a maximum intellectual and spiritual content.
Kind Regards
Jim Clark
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2015
