"Live Oak, with Moss" and "Calamus"

186 Pages·2010·3.73 MB·English

by  Betsy Erkkila

Walt
Whitman’s
Songs of
Male Intimacy
and Love
  
The
Iowa
Whitman
Series
ed folSom
series editor
Walt
Whitman’s
Songs of
Male Intimacy
and Love
  
“Live Oak, with Moss”
and “Calamus”
Edited by Betsy Erkkila
UnIv e r S I Ty o f I oWa P r e S S, I oWa C I T y
University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242
Copyright © 2011 by the University of Iowa Press
www.uiowapress.org
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Printed on acid-free paper
library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication data
Whitman, Walt, 1819–1892.
[Poems. Selections.]
Walt Whitman’s songs of male intimacy and love: “live oak,
with moss” and “Calamus” / edited by Betsy erkkila.
p. cm.—(The Iowa Whitman series, ISSn 1556-5610)
Includes bibliographical references.
Summary: This volume includes Whitman’s handwritten
manuscript version of the twelve “live oak, with moss” poems
alongside a print transcription of these poems on the opposite page,
followed by a facsimile of the original version of the “Calamus”
poems published in the 1860–61 edition of leaves of grass,
and a reprint of the fnal version of the “Calamus” poems
in the 1881 edition of leaves of grass.
ISBn-13: 978-1-58729-958-2 (pbk.), ISBn-10: 1-58729-958-5 (pbk.)
ISBn-13: 978-1-58729-959-9 (ebk.), ISBn-10: 1-58729-959-3 (ebk.)
1. Homosexuality—Poetry. I. erkkila, Betsy, 1944–
II. Whitman, Walt, 1819–1892. live oak, with moss.
III. Whitman, Walt, 1819–1892. Calamus. Iv. Title.
PS3204.e75 2011
811'.3—dc22 2010038901
To Robert K. Martin
I will lift what has too long kept down those
smouldering fres,
I will give them complete abandonment,
I will write the evangel-poem of comrades, and of love,
(For who but I should understand love, with all its
sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
Walt Whitman, “Proto-leaf”
Contents

manly love in all Its moods: a Preface
xi
live oak, with moss
1
Calamus, 1860
39
Calamus, 1881
79
Songs of male Intimacy and love:
an afterword
99
“Calamus” and Whitman’s man love:
a Selected Bibliography
163