A BRANCH ON THE TREE OF
WHITMAN:
Edward Carvalho interviews Martin Espada
on the 150th Anniversary of Leaves of Grass
During the week of July 4, 2005, award-winning poet, Martín Espada, took time
from one of his writing workshops at the Castle Hill Center for the Arts in
Truro, Massachusetts to give his thoughts on the sesquicentennial celebration
of Whitman’s seminal work, Leaves of Grass.
Edward Carvalho: What initially drew you to Whitman as a poet? How did
you first discover him? Were you inspired more from a stylistic interest in his
aesthetic or through the attention he afforded the dispossessed? What are the
aspects of his voice that have found their way into your own work?
Martín Espada: Let’s take these one at a time, starting with what
initially drew me to Whitman. I would say, first of all, that when I first
encountered Whitman I wasn’t ready for him. And I wasn’t ready for him in part
because nobody taught Whitman to me. I did not get any Whitman in high school;
I did not get any Whitman in college. We’re talking about the 70’s now. And
Whitman was, and I think to some extent still is, a poet who is quietly censored
in this country. It’s ironic because at the same time he has gained a
reputation as one of our great poets and certainly the founder of so much of
what we call poetry today. Yet, in a really tangible way, we’re not ready for
Whitman as a society. We’re still not ready for his message of radical
egalitarianism; we’re certainly not ready for his expressions of compassion for
everyone and many of us, I should add, are not ready for his sexuality.
I think, therefore, I had to come to Whitman on my own and very slowly. When I
did, I realized something, which is that I had been reading Whitman all along
without knowing it. His influence is that pervasive. You can read a poet like
Allen Ginsberg or, for that matter, a poet like Pablo Neruda and not realize
you’re reading Whitman. You’re not aware that you are actually looking at
Leaves of Grass when you’re reading Canto General or The Fall of America.
Certainly I had come to other poets in Whitman’s lineage in the Whitmanic
tradition before I came to him. When I finally came to him with that
understanding, that he was everywhere, then I had a deeper appreciation of him.
Actually, I can remember walking around with a copy of Leaves of Grass
everywhere I went. I’d carry it with me. I would underline and star certain
lines or passages. I would read him out loud to anybody who would listen and
some who wouldn’t listen. So, at a certain point I began to look at Leaves of
Grass as almost Biblical in its resonance and its impact on how I saw the
world. This wasn’t something that happened overnight; it took me a while to
figure out how important this voice was to me.
And, yes, there is a particular part of Whitman that most appeals to me, and
that’s Whitman the advocate. If you look at the 1855 introduction to Leaves of
Grass – the first edition – you’ll find a passage that’s very telling when it
comes to Whitman the advocate. It’s Whitman there who says that the duty of the
poet is to “cheer up slaves and horrify despots.” I can identify with that. You
find other indications of Whitman the advocate throughout his work. If you go
to number 24 of “Song of Myself”, you’ll see there that Whitman says, “through
me many long dumb voices.” Whitman says there, “voices veil’d and I remove the
veil.” He takes it upon himself to become a voice for the voiceless. He
declares his intentions, which is one of the things that sets him apart from
other poets. He says “this is what I’m going to do” and then he does it.
Whitman is a didactic poet in the best sense. He’s a teacher; he’s fully aware
of the instruction he’s giving and he’s completely unembarrassed about giving
it. This is refreshing, actually, when you consider how many poets have a
hidden agenda. Many poets don’t come out and say what on their minds, exactly.
There’s never any doubt to me that Whitman is saying what he’s saying, that he
means what he means. But that Whitman, certainly – Whitman the advocate
– has had the greatest effect on me and on other poets.
Neruda again comes to mind. Think, for example, about The Heights of Macchu
Picchu, where Neruda ascends to that summit and looks down, then speaks to
generations of dead laborers and says, “I come to speak through your dead
mouths.” This is Neruda expressly taking on the role of advocate in the middle
of the 20th century, just as Whitman had in the middle of the 19th century. So,
I’m definitely part of that tradition – definitely part of that great tree. I
see myself as a branch on the tree of Whitman. And there are many, many
branches.
Carvalho: 150 years later, what would you say are the key points to
Whitman’s legacy from Leaves of Grass and who are its contemporary inheritors?
Espada: There are so many things to take away from Leaves of Grass 150
years later, one of which is obviously that Whitman is a poet of faith. His
faith, however, is not faith in God: it’s faith in democracy and it’s faith in
poetry, and the power of poetry to change people and change the world. We need
that kind of faith right now at a time when democracy is being challenged by those
who claim to uphold it, who make war in the name of democracy when in fact it’s
a war of profit.
We also need faith in poetry. Poetry has become so marginalized in this
country, almost to the point of being mocked. I think, again, it’s not a
coincidence that this is happening in a time when we need dissident voices, in
a time when we need people to speak up. It’s not a coincidence that poetry is
so derided because it’s one vehicle by which those dissident voices might be
heard.
Looking at Leaves of Grass you are immediately struck by Whitman’s faith both
in poetry and in democracy. It’s a faith that we need to reassert in these
days. Certainly, I think the universal compassion expressed in Leaves of Grass
has to be reasserted. This is another timely lesson for us now. It’s not a
coincidence that certain kinds of people recur throughout his work, especially
in “Song of Myself.” We can see the pattern by which prisoners, prostitutes and
slaves keep cropping up in Whitman’s verse. He makes continual statements of
solidarity with these most marginalized of people. We need more of that today.
Whitman also had a vast appreciation for work and the working class in this
country. There are many lessons to be taken away.
Finally, on strictly an aesthetic level, one of the striking things about
Leaves of Grass 150 years later is that we can understand it. It’s accessible,
it’s clear, it’s direct. There is an aesthetic statement there that poetry
should communicate, that it should clarify, instead of moving in the opposite
direction. As you well know, too many poets today believe in obscurity for the
sake of obscurity, weirdness for its own sake. That only serves to further
alienate people from poetry, and rightly so. Poets complain about lacking an
audience and then they write incomprehensible poems. They have no one to blame
but themselves if that’s what they choose to do.
Whitman did not do that. Whitman wanted to communicate. There is an urgency
about Whitman’s voice that comes across in the direct, clear address of his
words. That’s a lesson we can take away from Leaves of Grass 150 years later.
There are good reasons why we’re talking about this work now. There are good
reasons why it’s still relevant even though it was written 150 years ago, when
certain poems written 150 days ago are no longer relevant.
Carvalho: Recently, an article surfaced where Whitman was quoted as
saying, “don’t be a poet” to the two young reporters who came to visit him. In
the context of the article where he also discussed the importance of learning
the complete craft of writing from typesetting to aspects of self-publishing
and door-to-door distribution, it appeared as though Whitman was providing a
blueprint for writers, particularly poets, to break with convention and forge
into new territory of individual celebration as a writer or an artist. Do you
think Whitman consciously approached poetry from this point of view throughout
his life?
Espada: It’s striking to me that Whitman would insist upon learning all
aspects of printing and publishing in addition to writing, per se. Obviously,
if you look at Whitman’s work you see that it’s very physical, very visceral.
Whitman believed in evoking the senses. If you look at a poem like, “Crossing
Brooklyn Ferry”, you can still feel that. That’s why Whitman can speak so
successfully to the future reader. In essence he can say, “just as I do this
today, you will do this” or “just as you do that today, so I did that.” He’s
well aware of communicating with the future reader and he can do that because
his work is so steeped in the senses. He knows that we’ll still be experiencing
life in fundamentally the same way a century and a half later. It’s not
surprising to me that he would insist on knowing and understanding the physical
part of making a poem, the physical part of making a book how that goes into
the process.
Speaking for myself, I learned a long time ago how to make a book. My first
book came out 23 years ago when the process was much different. I drive
publishers crazy because I know all the steps. And, of course, I have to argue
about everything. My father is another one. My father is a professional
photographer and he insists on understanding and teaching the entire process of
making a print as part of a larger creative process. To him, they’re
inseparable. There is a very definite connection between snapping the
photograph, developing the photograph into a print and then framing the
photograph. It’s all of a piece. So I understand that approach.
Whitman’s advice, “don’t be a poet”, sounds a bit tongue-in-cheek and it’s
important to keep in mind that not everything he said can be taken at face
value. Certainly, late in life, he said some things that would strike us as
controversial or just plain wrong. And some of them he said in the company of
his devoted friend, Horace Traubel. Traubel is an interesting character, and
this is a bit of a digression. Traubel was a German socialist who read
Whitman’s work from a socialist point of view and argued for that reading even
with Whitman, who eventually conceded that his work was more socialist than he
admitted.
At the same time, Traubel was so devoted to Whitman that he recorded every
inkling, every burp that came out of Whitman in the last few years of his life
in Camden, New Jersey. Not all of that is flattering, to say the least, and
some of it was undoubtedly produced by the “good gray poet” as he was losing
his grip on what we call reality. So, it’s a mixed bag. I still think it’s
important to read Whitman the way Traubel read him, but we also have to be
guarded against interpreting every single utterance of Whitman as gospel.
Carvalho: I heard you read last year in Boston at a Boston Adult
Literacy function and you opened with a Spanish translation of number 24 from
“Song of Myself.” Do you ever see yourself undertaking a project in your
writing similar to what Whitman did with Leaves of Grass? Will we ever see an
Espada translation of Leaves of Grass in its entirety?
Espada: Well, I enjoy reading Whitman aloud in Spanish. Whitman, you
must remember, runs both north and south. He was introduced to Latin America
and the Spanish-speaking world through José Marti. And later on, of course,
Neruda became Whitman’s greatest disciple in the Spanish language. But Whitman
influenced many in Latin America and, in fact, at one point, he arguably had
more influence in Latin America than he did in this country.
He is certainly a poet who appeals to Latin America because he is wrestling
with some of the great questions that still bedevil Latin America today,
including national identity, and his thirst for justice has considerable appeal
in Latin America, particularly among writers. So it’s not surprising to see
that he had the effect that he did in the Spanish language.
I would never presume to translate Whitman into Spanish myself. I am bilingual,
but English is my first language and Spanish is my second language. I was born
in Brooklyn, and there are places in Brooklyn where English is still spoken, so
that’s the language I grew up with.
In any case, I see very few poets undertaking the kind of epic project that is
Leaves of Grass. Neruda certainly did it with Canto General; if anything it’s
even more vast than Leaves of Grass. But such an epic project is rare and
understandably so. I content myself with trying to understand things at a much
smaller scale. Nevertheless, I deeply appreciate anybody who can do that.
Carvalho: I see and hear Whitman’s influence in many of your works, most
notably the poem “Alabanza” and many of the poems from Imagine the Angels of
Bread. What poem(s) of yours do you see as distinctly Whitmanian?
Espada: Whenever I write about work, I hear Whitman’s voice. The work
could be my own or someone else’s work. But surely, “I Hear America Singing” is
in my head and will never leave. When I write about people who are
incarcerated, I hear Whitman’s voice, and I’ve written quite a number of prison
poems, based to a large extent on my own experience working either as lawyer or
a poet with people who have been incarcerated.
I have one poem where I speak directly at Whitman and that’s a poem called,
significantly, “Another Nameless Prostitute Says the Man is Innocent.” It is
for and about Mumia Abu-Jamal, the African American journalist on death row in
the state of Pennsylvania. Whitman makes an appearance because I actually
visited his tomb in Camden, New Jersey in 1997, and incorporated that visit
into the poem I was writing about Mumia, a poem, which, by the way, was
solicited by “All Things Considered” at National Public Radio and then censored
by them. They refused to air it, which led to quite a public blow-up, I’m proud
to say. And, so, Whitman made a very direct appearance – not by coincidence –
in a poem about an African American on death row. I think he would have understood
that situation. So, in that way, I see his influence on my work.
I think there are ways Whitman influences me that I have not yet discovered for
myself. He is that pervasive. When he says, at the end of “Song of Myself,”
look for me under your boot-soles,” he’s not simply trying to get our
attention. He is saying that he is part of the world we inhabit and walk upon.
And I certainly believe that. So I come back to the fact that we are not ready
for Whitman yet. Whitman gives very good advice which we have not yet followed.
In the workshop today, I’m going to talk about another passage from his preface
to the 1855 edition of Leaves, which has everything to do with how to live in
the world. Beyond poetry, beyond politics, Whitman has advice for us on how to
live everyday, and I think we should finally start listening to him.
Part of the context of this conversation is that so much is happening in this
society that Whitman would absolutely condemn. Some of it is happening in
poetry. Look at the movement toward obscurity, the movement toward a kind of
trivialization of poetry, where the goal is to adopt a pose of detached, hip
cynicism and not to engage with the world. Whitman is so deeply engaged with
the world; you get that sense that he’s so involved. He’s bombarded by the
sensations of being alive and he wants to share that with us immediately. He
can’t hold it back. It has to emerge somehow. We see, in a lot of ways,
especially in the M.F.A. world, people fleeing from the Whitman model, running
in the opposite direction, towards what I don’t know. Towards Ashbery? Towards
Stevens in some way? It’s a flight from anything that could move people,
anything that could change people. It is, in some ways, profoundly dishonest.
Whitman will be there no matter what they do. They could set fire to the whole
forest and that’s the one tree that won’t burn down. It’s that solid; it’s that
real.
But you have to wonder, where’s everyone going? Why so many, in M.F.A. programs
especially, are fleeing from Whitman and what he represents? Why is it that
there are so many M.F.A. programs that don’t even teach Whitman, and certainly
do not teach his descendants? Why is it that so many M.F.A. programs offer us
only a model of obscurity and this pose of detached, hip cynicism? What’s
happening to American poetry that’s so anti-Whitman? That’s something to
consider. Ultimately, I think in this country when we see any trend that can’t
be readily explained, we have to follow the money trail. We have to ask
ourselves where the money is. Where are the dollars? Strangely, the aesthetic
of obscurity is being rewarded in this country to the extent it never has
before, in the form of all the resources we’re familiar with: the grants, the
awards, the residencies, the teaching appointments, and on and on and on. Look
at all the critical recognition that comes to the absurdism dominating so much
of the poetic discourse. I think Whitman would have sneered at it; he would
have snorted at it.
Again, this is a poet of urgency, a poet of a true communication, which is why
we’re still reading him today. His approach to the world is so spontaneous and
so real. You have to wonder why so many other poets went the other way, and why
they’re rewarded for it.
Carvalho: I have to tell you, when I went to that reading in Boston, it
was a very pivotal shift in my own career, because I was seeing and hearing so
much of this homogenized movement in contemporary poetry. I feel that I come
from a tradition of Whitman and that’s what attracted me to writing: his style
and what he had to say. When I heard you read it really restored my faith to
know there is still a grounding and acknowledgment of traditional roots in this
country. Prior to this, I was seeing so much of a fragmentation and future of
hopelessness in modern poetry.
Espada: The larger question here is: how do we make history? Who writes
history? Who decides what history to include and what history to exclude? So
often we accept the taken for granted reality. So often we accept the received
wisdom without looking beyond those borders. We have to go beyond those borders
to see Whitman, because Whitman is still an outlaw poet. Whitman is still a
poet who represents certain values, which, if adopted, would radically
transform this society. This goes beyond poetry. If we adopted the radical
egalitarianism that Whitman expresses in “Song of Myself”, let’s say, or Leaves
of Grass more generally, this society would look very different. If we were to
accept Whitman’s sexuality, what would that do to the so-called “red states?”
Half the preachers would be out of a job; half the politicians would be out of
work, just if we accepted Whitman and his views on sexuality, that’s all. We’re
still arguing about whether or not the Confederate flag should be flown. What
would Whitman make of that? The anti-slavery Whitman, the Whitman who wrote, “I
Sing the Body Electric,” that extraordinary anti-slavery poem. What would
Whitman say about the people who still wave the Confederate flag a century and
a half later? What would the Whitman of the Civil War, the Whitman of Drum
Taps, the Whitman who was a nurse taking care of the dying soldiers, make of
those who romanticize the Confederate cause today, who still support the
principles on which that Confederacy was founded? I think he would be aghast.
One of the most important interpretations I saw of Whitman – and this ties in
to what we’re talking about now – was an essay written by an African-American
poet named June Jordan. Jordan wrote an essay called, “For The Sake of a
People’s Poetry: Walt Whitman and the Rest of Us.” There, for the first time, I
saw June Jordan make explicit the connection between Whitman and poets of
color. Of course, those ideas did not originate with her necessarily, because
Langston Hughes echoed those same sentiments during his day. He was a poet of
Whitman and he declared himself to be in that camp. To him there was no
contradiction between being a poet of the Harlem Renaissance and being a poet
in the tradition of Whitman. In the same way, I see myself as a Latino poet, a
Puerto Rican poet, a poet coming out of the so-called Nuyorican experience, and
a poet in the tradition of Whitman. There is no contradiction at all. There, to
this day, is where Whitman gets his greatest reception in the poetry world: on
the margins, on the fringes, in the places where poets understand what it means
to be silenced or suppressed or neglected. There Whitman lives and breathes.
We’re going to celebrate Whitman this year because of the 150th anniversary of
Leaves, but how many of us are going to read him? Of those who read him, how
many will really take those words to heart? This is the poet who says he
stands, for “the rights of them the others are down upon.” How many of us
believe in those rights and stand up for them?
Carvalho: I remember also after having seen you on “NewsHour” that you
appeared to have quite a collection of various editions of Leaves of Grass.
Espada: What I discovered after a while is you can walk into a used
bookstore and find a beat-up edition of Whitman from the ‘30’s or ‘40’s for
next to nothing, and that they made good companions. I started collecting them,
and it’s remarkable to see how many different editions of Whitman have been
produced.
One of the most interesting came out in the 1950’s, and it was an edition of
the preface, and the preface only from the first edition of Leaves of Grass. It
was edited and produced by a guy named William Everson, a poet who felt, as
many poets do, that the preface from Leaves is really poetry itself. He took
that prose, broke it down into verses, organized it with line breaks and stanza
breaks and actually shaped a poem from the preface. It’s fascinating to look at
because I believe he was right. It was a great way of calling attention to a piece
of writing that had been somewhat overlooked because it wasn’t part of the body
of poetry, per se. But, yeah, I do have a few things like that. Of course, I
could never afford a signed edition of Whitman. That’s out of my league, to say
the least. If The MacArthur Foundation comes calling, I might indulge myself.
It’s always great to see the way people respond to Whitman. Consider the
assumption we so often make about poetry based about Auden’s famous phrase,
“poetry makes nothing happen.” That’s become an article of religious faith
among so many poets whose work indeed makes nothing happen. But I won’t soon
forget being in Chile last July. I was there as part of a small U.S. delegation
to commemorate the Centenary of Pablo Neruda. He was born on July 12, 1904. I
ended up visiting Isla Negra, Neruda’s home on the coast, the day before his
birthday. There was a huge gathering there, thousands of people, including a
number of people who were there to visit his tomb. I went to his tomb. As part
of the festivities, I was being videotaped. I decided to read the same passage
you heard me read in Boston – number 24 from “Song of Myself” – in Spanish at
Neruda’s tomb. Strangely, it felt like I was reading to a sick friend; a very
sick friend – a dead friend, in fact. I read that passage out loud at the tomb
of Neruda. I got through with reading it and heard applause. I looked up and I
was surrounded by people who were listening. They were listening to Walt
Whitman in Spanish, and it was remarkable to see their response that day at
Neruda’s tomb. It was as if they understood that the voice of Neruda’s
grandfather had just come calling.
Carvalho: As you are also heavily involved in the educational aspects of
poetry, do you find that many of your students are separated from connections
to Whitman or the Whitmanic tradition?
Espada: My students come to me less and less literate all the time. They
read less and less, and it isn’t just Whitman they aren’t reading. They’re
reading less and less in general. They are less and less aware of their
history. They are less and less aware of their poetry and poetic tradition. I’m
quite sure that some of them have had Whitman shoved down their throats and
they didn’t appreciate it. Of course, when Whitman is taught, especially at the
high school level, I would imagine there’s quite a bit of sanitizing going on.
I am also quite sure that over the years, as teachers took the path of least
resistance, they would end up teaching some of Whitman’s lesser work like, “O
Captain! My Captain!” – the poem about Lincoln – and avoiding some of the more
challenging work. How, over the years, in the Southern states for example,
would you teach the passages from “Song of Myself” where Whitman identifies so
closely with the fugitive slave? There’s one point at which Whitman embraces a
fugitive slave who comes to seek refuge at his house. It’s a fictional event,
but still important for Whitman to put in the poem. There’s another point at
which Whitman actually transfuses himself into a runaway slave – becomes a
runaway slave – who is subsequently caught. How was that taught during all the
years of segregation in the South? How is that taught today, anywhere, North or
South? Is it taught at all, I wonder? Again, I don’t think we’re ready for him.
I don’t know what to expect from all of these celebrations this year. I’m
participating in a Whitman conference called “Look Back at Me” at Central
Connecticut State University this coming September. I know that every year
there is a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge organized by Poets’ House where
someone reads “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” That is, again, a remarkable poem,
because he looks at the birds and knows that, crossing the same body of water
we will look up at the sky and see the same birds: He’s got it.
No doubt there will be some things that will happen this year that will be
inspiring, to say the least. But we should celebrate Whitman all the time, not
just this year. In fact, a couple of years ago I did a reading at the Smith
College Poetry Center with Galway Kinnell and Kate Rushin to celebrate Whitman,
and there was no particular occasion because we didn’t need one.
Carvalho: I recently read Kinnell’s Book of Nightmares and thought it
was over the top, I loved it.
Espada: He’s an important inheritor of the Whitman tradition, someone
who has written very intelligently about Whitman, too.
Carvalho: Who do you think are some of the other modern poets of this
tradition?
Espada: I see a number of poets in that tradition. Certainly in North America
we go back to the beginning of the 20th century and there is Carl Sandburg, who
is definitely part of the Whitman tradition. There is Edgar Lee Masters, who is
definitely part of the Whitman tradition. There is Langston Hughes, who is
definitely part of the Whitman tradition. Lesser known, but nonetheless
important poets like Sterling Brown were doubtlessly influenced by Whitman. Of
course, we all know about the Beats, about Ginsberg and Corso and Ferlinghetti
all being devotees of Whitman.
I certainly see it in Latino poets, in Chicano poets like Jimmy Santiago Baca
who came out of the prison experience. His early poems resonate with the
Whitman influence. Feminist poets like Marge Piercy, poets who write the body,
poets who write very physically, come out of the Whitman tradition, in my
opinion. I think of Sharon Olds, for example, as very much being a poet in the
Whitman tradition being a poet who writes the body, absolutely. I think of gay
poets, Rafael Campo, Mark Doty. They’re writing in the Whitman tradition.
Obviously, the political poets—we think, immediately, if we use that phrase, of
Carolyn Forché—are influenced by the Whitman inheritance. There are so many and
you start to realize they can’t even be counted.
That’s why I go back to the motif or the image of the tree, because it’s not
just that we have the strong roots and the strong foundation of Whitman, but
there are so many branches. That’s really where the metaphor makes sense to me.
All the poets that we’re talking about constitute one branch or another of
Whitman’s tree.
Called "the Latino poet of his generation," Martín Espada was born
in Brooklyn, New York in 1957. His seventh collection, Alabanza: New and
Selected Poems (1982-2002), was published by Norton in 2003, received the Paterson
Award for Sustained Literary Achievement and was named an American Library
Association Notable Book of the year. Espada is a professor at the University
of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Edward Carvalho is a twice-nominated Pushcart Prize poet who has been writing
poetry for 15 years. Carvalho is currently an M.F.A. candidate at Goddard
College where he is completing a manuscript of poetry entitled, solitary, poor,
nasty, brutish and short.
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