chatting with the poet

The word “procession” first caught my attention as I was reading the “Children of Adam” cluster. In the song No.3 that will later become “I Sing the Body Electric” Whitman states that

All is a procession,

The universe is a procession, with measured and

beautiful motion.

This struck me as quite a somber word for a poem so vivid and full of life, since I associated it mainly with funeral processions. However, the poet obviously had something else on his mind…

As can be seen in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a procession is “ a group of individuals moving along in an orderly often ceremonial way” but also “continuous forward movement :PROGRESSION”.  Wikipedia defines the term as “an organized body of people advancing in a formal or ceremonial manner” and shows different functions of processions, as diverse as entertainment and political solidarity. Having in mind Whitman’s progressive ideas this choice of words fits perfectly into a poem celebrating the humankind, since it shows that “each has his or her place in the procession”, that everyone takes his or her part in the continuous advancement of the world.

The Calamus poem No. 18, however, puts the word into a slightly different context. The poem which is to be named “The City of Orgies” gives a vivid picture of the city, where “the processions in the streets” are presented between the images of “the ships at the wharves” and “the bright windows with goods in them”. Nevertheless, this colorful description of a city swarming with life is not what makes the poet joyous. Although mentioned in the last line, “lovers, continual lovers” occupy the central place in the poem and the procession of people now seems as just another spectacle that can be observed from a window. Since the Calamus poems tend to be more intimate than those from the Children of Adam cluster, I feel that by distancing himself from the procession, the poet distances himself from the crowd and turns to the individuals.

(Interestingly, the lines with “the procession” seem to be missing from the Barrett Collection manuscript of the poem)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 7:11 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.