"Whitman and the Moth" by Clive James (poetry reading)

Van Wyck Brooks was a literary historian. His major work was a series he called "Makers and Finders" which charted the literature of the 19th century that shaped American culture. It might have been called "Movers and Shakers" if Arthur O'Shaughnessy hadn't already used that neat turn of phrase.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Wyck_Brooks

His book "The times of Melville and Whitman" is available from Amazon.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Times-Melville-Whitman-Wyck-Brooks/dp/1419156306
(By strange coincidence, Melville and Whitman were almost exactly the same age - each was born and died within a few months of the other)

Of course the notion of the moth arriving just in time to see the end of Whitman isn't literally true: moths have a life span of a couple of weeks. But poetic licence prevails, the metaphor is true: the imago of the emerging America arrived in time.

A librarian was surprised when a young boy checked out a book called "Advice to Young Mothers". When he asked him why, the lad said shyly "I have just started collecting moths".

There are more poems by Clive James on his website:
http://www.clivejames.com/poetry/recentpoems

The painting and photographs of Whitman by Thomas Eakins:
http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/thomas-eakins-and-walt-whitm...


Van Wyck Brooks tells us Whitman in old age
Sat by a pond in nothing but his hat,
Crowding his final notebooks page by page
With names of trees, birds, bugs and things like that.

The war could never break him, though he'd seen
Horrors in hospitals to chill the soul.
But now, preserved, the Union had turned mean:
Evangelizing greed was in control.

Good reason to despair, yet grief was purged
By tracing how creation reigned supreme.
A pupa cracked, a butterfly emerged:
America, still unfolding from its dream.

Sometimes he rose and waded in the pond,
Soothing his aching feet in the sweet mud.
A moth he knew, of which he had grown fond,
Perched on his hand as if to draw his blood.

But they were joined by what each couldn't do,
The meeting point where great art comes to pass --
Whitman, who danced and sang but never flew,
The moth, which had not written Leaves of Grass,

Composed a picture of the interchange
Between the mind and all that it transcends
Yet must stay near. No, there was nothing strange
In how he put his hand out to make friends

With such a fragile creature, soft as dust.
Feeling the pond cool as the light grew dim,
He blessed new life, though it had only just
Arrived in time to see the end of him.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Walt
• Whitman
• Moth
• Clive
• James
• poem
• poetry

[OhNoesItsSarah]

Ohh my. The last line takes my breath away. Really lovely, thank you so much for this channel!

[gandalf84100]

brilliant!

[Imagimontana]

Lovely, as ever. Thank you for introducing me to another poet.

[dragonheart130]

well read as always :-)

[SpiderSilva07]

This reading was particularly brilliant. Thank you.

[sonofwalt]

I had not heard or read this until now, and I cannot imagine a better first experience. Thank you. Added to my favorites.

[twinnumber3]

I especially enjoyed this one- thank You

[thissong4you]

A lovely poem. "Soft as dust." One of your more perfect readings. And a perfect Thomas Eakins' portrait. As Whitman said, "I never... knew [but] one artist, and that's Tom Eakins, who could resist the temptation to see what they think ought to be, rather than what is." Eakins painted my late husband's uncle and his grandmother. The former, "Taking the Count," is housed in the Yale Art Museum; the latter, sadly, was destroyed by the family, "because it made her look too sad."

[PaganGlade]

Cheers for all you do in getting good poetry onto the Tube SpokenVerse. Tha's doin grand our lad ;) ~PaganGlade~

[1atheist2]

Thanks so very much for sharing. I enjoyed this very much.