How shall we answer when Death calls our name? Having lived our lives avoiding thoughts of death, how do we respond to that final reality? Walt Whitman, America's greatest poet, gave deep thought to such questions. This volume of selected Whitman poetry speaks to an inner wisdom that is only strengthened as death draws near. Comforting and intimate, Whitman's words are collected here to help ease the journey that we all will take. An Allen Ginsberg essay addresses Walt Whitman's heroic contribution to the heart and soul of American thought. Twenty duotone photographs that reflect the movement and the mystery of life illustrate Whitman's poems. Some of this century's most brilliant photographers are represented here, including W. Eugene Smith, Ernst Haas, Linda Conner, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Frederick Sommer, Aaron Siskind, William Garnett, Ian Berry, Minor White, John Sexton, and Wynn Bullock. Their black and white imagery captures the stark contrasts, the gentle graying, and the paradox that is our life and death. Paul Vest edited this volume of Whitman's poetry, The Open Walt Whitman on Death & Dying, which was published in 1996. Joe Vest (Paul Joe Vest) died of AIDS in Boulder, Colorado at the age of 49 on April 20, 1994 before the book was published. The preface was written by Jan Vest and the introduction by Debra Floyd and Alvaro Cardona-Hine.
Author
Walter Whitman (1819-1892) was an American poet, essayist, journalist, and humanist. He was a part of the transition between Transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War in addition to publishing his poetry. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). After working as clerk, teacher, journalist and laborer, Whitman wrote his masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, pioneering free verse poetry in a humanistic celebration of humanity, in 1855. Emerson, whom Whitman revered, said of Leaves of Grass that it held "incomparable things incomparably said." During the Civil War, Whitman worked as an army nurse, later writing Drum Taps (1865) and Memoranda During the War (1867). His health compromised by the experience, he was given work at the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C. After a stroke in 1873, which left him partially paralyzed, Whitman lived his next 20 years with his brother, writing mainly prose, such as Democratic Vistas (1870). Leaves of Grass was published in nine editions, with Whitman elaborating on it in each successive edition. In 1881, the book had the compliment of being banned by the commonwealth of Massachusetts on charges of immorality. A good friend of Robert Ingersoll, Whitman was at most a Deist who scorned religion. D. 1892. More: http://www.whitmanarchive.org/ http://philosopedia.org/index.php/Wal... http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/126 http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/w... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt\_Whi... http://www.poemhunter.com/walt-whitman/
