1. “Date Night” is a comedy featuring Tina Fey (“30 Rock”) and Steve Carell (“The Office”). They try to revive their marriage by going out on a date. Hilarity ensues after they are mistaken for another married couple who owe people money. If, like me, the comedic veterans aren’t enough to convince you to watch the movie, “Date Night” also stars rapper Common, Mila Kunis (“That ‘7os Show”), Mark Wahlberg (“Four Brothers”) and James Franco (“Pineapple Express”).

2. “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” also centers on a marriage on the rocks and a married couple on the run. This time around, though, Hugh Grant (“Notting Hill”) and Sarah Jessica Parker (“Sex and City”)  are placed in the witness protection program after seeing a murder. I’ve seen this trailer in theaters several times and every time, someone reacts to the last part of the trailer. Indeed, the laughs start once they relocate to Wyoming …

3. “Kick Ass” follows newcomer Aaron Johnson as he decides to become a superhero even though he has no powers. The tone of the film is similar to the humor in several Owen Wilson movies, such as “The Darjeeling Limited.” Christopher Mintz-Plasse, of “Superbad” fame, also stars. Johnson can also be seen in the John Lennon-film, “Nowhere Boy.” Its trailer is over here.

4. Acclaimed actor James McAvoy can next be seen in “The Last Station,” which focuses on the life of famed author Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer). The trailer doesn’t reveal much else, but the film does have a 7.3 star rating on IMDb.com. The film’s early release is supposedly a ploy to secure Plummer an Oscar nomination in next year’s weak Best Actor race. McAvoy’s real-life wife, Anne Marie Duff, as well as Oscar favorites Helen Mirren and Paul Giamatti co-star.

5. Focus Features is set to release “Babies,” a documentary which chronicles one year in the lives of different newborns around the world, namely Tokyo, San Francisco, Mongolia and Namibia.

Edward Norton, Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Robert Pattinson, Vanessa Hudgens, “Toy Story 3,” romantic comedies (Amy Adams! Nicholas Sparks!), potential Oscar nominees (George Clooney! Emily Blunt!) and more after the jump.

6. Hollywood takes another stab at “Beauty and the Beast” with the adaptation of Alex Flinn’s novel, “Beastly.” The teaser trailer is so abrupt that I’m not excited to see it in theaters. Relative unknown Alex Pettyfer and Vanessa Hudgens (“High School Musical”) star.

7. “Season of the Witch” reteams Nicolas Cage with “Gone in 60 Seconds” director, Dominic Sena. This heart-pounding action movie takes us with a band of knights who are tasked with moving a powerful witch to a monastery. Ron Perlman from “Hellboy” co-stars.

8. Amanda Seyfried (“Mamma Mia”) sure knows how to pick movies — at least, chick flicks that I want to see. First, there was Nicholas Sparks’s “Dear John.” Now, there’s “Letters to Juliet.” Seyfried stars as a girl who’s engaged to Gael Garcia Bernal (“Science of Sleep”) but goes on an adventure with Christopher Egan (“Eragon”) and Vanessa Redgrave after she finds Redgrave’s letter to a long lost love.

IMDb.com states that Hugh Dancy was originally cast in Bernal’s role but dropped out, which is a shame. Anyone who’s seen him in “The Jane Austen Book Club” knows that Dancy would have been perfect in this movie albeit in Egan’s role. Oh, well. Cue Taylor Swift’s “Love Story.”

9. Noah Baumbach (“The Squid and the Whale”) once again gifts us with his zing-damn-oh snap (!) dialogue in “Greenberg.” Ben Stiller tries his hand at drama as a man in a mid-life crisis. Jennifer Jason Leigh (“Single White Female”) and Rhys Ifans (to be seen in “Harry Potter 7″) round out the cast.

10. “Crazy Heart” is another film with an earlier-than-scheduled release date. Again, the movie studio is trying to nab its star, Jeff Bridges, a Best Actor nod. Bridges (“Iron Man”) stars as a country music star who’s down on his luck until his path crosses with a journalist (Maggie Gyllenhaal).

11. According to IMDb.com, “Remember Me” is up by 658 percent in popularity this week. The most probable reason? Robert Pattinson (“Twilight”) is the star. He is joined by Pierce Brosnan (“James Bond”), Chris Cooper (“The Kingdom”) and Emilie de Ravin (“Lost”).

12. In “Leaves of Grass,” Edward Norton plays twin brothers who plot to kill their small town’s drug lord. The supporting cast includes Susan Sarandon (“Stepmom”) and Keri Russell (“August Rush”).

13. “Extraordinary Measures” is based on the true story of John and Aileen Crowley who race to find a cure for their dying child. Brendan Fraser (“The Mummy”), Russell (“Felicity”) and Harrison Ford (“Indiana Jones”) star.

14. “In Ireland, women can propose to men on the 29th of February.” This is the premise of “Leap Year,” in which Amy Adams (“Enchanted”) takes it upon herself to propose to her longtime boyfriend. Fate intervenes when she lands in Wales instead and runs into Matthew Goode (“Chasing Liberty”).

15. In “Grown Ups,” five childhood friends reunite after 30 years. The movie’s cast is a who’s who of comedy, namely David Spade (“The Benchwarmers”), Chris Rock (“Down to Earth”), Adam Sandler (“Spanglish”), Kevin James (“Hitch”), Rob Schneider (“Hot Chick”), Maya Rudolph (“Away We Go”), Salma Hayek (“Frida”) and Maria Bello (“Coyote Ugly”).

16. After failing to impress the girl of his dreams, Michael Cera (“Superbad”) decides to rebel in the comedy, “Youth in Revolt.” Justin Long (“Accepted”) and Zach Galifianakis (“The Hangover”) also star in the movie. Trailer no.1 and trailer no. 2 follow:

17. Soon there won’t be another Sparks’s novel to film, and the world as we know it will come to an end. “The Last Song” is Hollywood’s latest try at the author’s romantic novels. Miley Cyrus (“Hannah Montana”) stars as a rebellious teenager who, along with her younger brother, is sent to spend the summer with her estranged dad. Cyrus, also a musical prodigy, falls in love and makes amends with her father.

I guess that means two things. 1) We can look forward to Cyrus-filled soundtrack. 2) Supposedly, the studio thought Mandy Moore in two Sparks’s adaptations would have been too much. Nonetheless, Greg Kinnear (“Little Miss Sunshine”) and Kelly Preston (“Jerry Maguire”) lend the movie some credibility.

18. Maybe you’ve heard of James Cameron’s (“Titanic”) latest venture, “Avatar.” An adventure in another world and another time pits  human soldiers against an entirely new species. Sam Worthington (“Terminator: Salvation”), Sigourney Weaver (“Alien”), Zoe Saldana (“Star Trek”) and Michelle Rodriguez (“Girl Fight”) star.

19. It’s just a teaser trailer, but “Clash of the Titans” looks pretty amazing. Whoever created the score is some kind of genius. Liam Neeson (Batman Begins”), Ralph Fiennes (“Harry Potter”) and Worthington  are all part of the remake.

20. Catch the “Toy Story 3″ teaser and full trailers below:

21. Emily Blunt is “The Young Victoria.” From the looks of the trailer, Blunt (“The Devil Wears Prada”) will give another powerhouse performance as Queen Victoria. She is paired with Rupert Friend (“Pride and Prejudice”) as her Prince Albert. The ensemble cast includes Paul Bettany (“The Da Vinci Code”) and Jim Broadbent (“The Chronicles of Narnia”).

22. Clooney may have cinched another Oscar nomination with his performance in “Up in the Air.” In fact, director Jason Reitman (“Juno”), actresses Anna Kendrick (“Twilight”) and Vera Farmiga (“The Departed”) all have Oscar buzz surrounding them. Clooney is the guy that companies hire to travel all over the globe and fire people for them.

The film was originally meant to be a satire like Reitman’s “Thank You for Not Smoking,” but the recession called for a revamping of the movie. The first trailer below tells you more about the story, but the second trailer is by far the better one. Fasten your seatbelts …

Personally, I’m looking forward to “Up in the Air,” “The Young Victoria,” “Leap Year” and “Letters to Juliet” although I’d probably watch some, such as “Avatar” and “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” if my friends want to see them. What about you? Sound off in the comments!

//

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I’ve recently been working on gifts for Christmas.  My daughter’s boyfriend really likes Walt Whitman, so I made a Poet-tree collage of Whitman’s book of poems “Leaves of Grass”.

First I went to google images and found some copies of Whitman’s poems in his own handwriting and glued them onto my background:

Then I printed a picture of Whitman and the title of the book:

Next I cut the leaves out of magazine pages and any paper I could find with green in it:

I then stained the background green and blue and glued Whitman to the bottom, painted a tree coming out of his head and glued the leaves on the tree.  I also used the leaves for the grass.   I used a bottle cap to print cloud circles in the sky. 

Here’s the finished collage:

A Walt Whitman “Leaves of Grass Poetree”

Dos hermanos gemelos, cada uno con un modo de vida diferente, vuelven a encontrarse, pero la vida criminal de uno de ellos llevará el caos a la tranquila existencia del otro, poniendo a prueba el alcance del amor filial. La cinta Leaves of Grass se había mantenido en la más completa discresión durante mucho tiempo, y sólo ahora, faltando un mes para su estreno, podemos ver su primer trailer. Si bien el tema es un viejo cliché de comedia, el verlo en una historia dramática puede ser una cuestión bastante refrescante, así que valdrá la pena darle una oportunidad.

Considering the body and the book… I should turn to Whitman, of course.  But before I could realize this, Whitman turned to me.

And Whitman’s crotch? Details of Whitman’s [censored] crotch courtesy of  Ted Genoways’ essay “One goodshaped and wellhung man” via the distorting lense of Google Books:

Thanks to a colleague in the English Department, I found myself examining our library’s two copies of Whitman’s 1855 Leaves of Grass.  This was one of those rare fortuitous moments when the right confrontation happens at the right time.  I have written here about my ongoing thinking about the body and the book brought on by thinking about Tomasula’s Vas and Jackson’s Patchwork Girl.  Both works take up this theme by being both books about the body and books that cannot be read fully without confronting the mode of their embodiment (meaning that the method or approach utilized within the works themselves is one of a highly aestheticized and intentional embodiment).

But these very contemporary works… how do they connect to Whitman?  I am not quite sure yet. Not exactly.  But I think there is a Steinian there there. As we were going over the errors and stop press corrections between the different states of the 1st editions for the Census of the 1855 Leaves of Grass, the most interesting contested change of “state” centered not upon the text itself but upon Whitman’s crotch.  Ted Genoways contends that Whitman, unhappy with his initial portrait, made changes to it.  These changes were noted by Ed Folsom, but it seems Genoways is the one to have characterized them as enhancing his package, err, portrait so as to make him seem better, or at least more substantially, endowed.

Only with Whitman.

A few connections spring immediately to mind here:

• Whitman does not add his name to the title page:  He does not list himself as author.  His name only appears in the front matter along with the copyright information as the one who registered the book.  His only signature is his portrait.  He chooses to depict his body rather than record his name.  (I can only assume this is a choice and not an oversight; if he wanted to be anonymous, why include his name along with the copyright information?)
• How queer this body of the book:  This is not what a poetry book was to look like.  This is not how a book of poems should present itself.  With his long mellifluous lines, his colloquial cadences, his sprawling passages, Whitman’s poem was unconventional.  But beyond this, the first edition of Leaves of Grass, is physically strange.  The Rome press was a jobbing press, a press that produced ephemera like broadsides and legal forms in particular.  This is likely the reason for the strange form the book was to take. The oversize format of the 1855 Leaves presents a highly individualized and peculiar looking book of poetry.
• And what to make of our Digital Whitman (see the Googlized Whitman above): Consider the Whitman who chose to present himself in his own image within the pages of his book–the book he paid for and typeset and oversaw.  This book was not merely a text composed by Whitman; it was an object created by and from him. It is an example and a practice of unencumbered freedom of expression; a man with a voice and body in the public square, multiplied. But that was Whitman then, in control (at least more so than most) of his own representation, bibliographical and literary.  But what of this Whitman today?  What has happened? How has our mediated Whitman been transformed?  What does our Digital Whitman look like?  And how do we know him?

O our Digital Whitman.  He remains a mischievous and delightful sort, despite the buzz and static of our technologies and the onanistic ever-yawping of our literary critics.

In piecing together my ideas, I returned to the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review website to check references and browse through some recent scholarship.  I think a new website is in the works (or an old website remains on display).  Where information pertaining to the latest issue or current news should be found, the following was (and is still, as of this typing at 11:41pm on Friday, Oct. 23, 2009) displayed:

• Urodynamically defined stress urinary incontinence and bladder outlet obstruction coexist in women
• [and a few lines down...]
• Zotero / uiowa-obgyn Group / Items
• Vaginal wall descensus and pelvic floor symptoms in older women
• Vaginal descent and pelvic floor symptoms in postmenopausal women: a longitudinal study
• Urodynamically defined stress urinary incontinence and bladder outlet obstruction coexist in women
• Urodynamic evaluation of the bladder and pelvic floor

This on a page purporting to be the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review (found doing a simple Google search). Clearly wires are crossed.  So much for lorem ipsum to fill the space where “content” will later reside: this is Whitman we are talking about.  Make it bodily.  Perhaps Steve Tomasula has been appointed silent editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review (the rogue site is located here: http://demo.training.bepress.com/wwqr/).  Am I dreaming, or is this online scholarly publication starting to look a lot like Vas?:

A detail from above:

O Whitman, he must have his digital love-grip on this one, even from the grave.

{First image is from Wikimedia commons, the others are cited or linked above}

Walt/ter Whitman (1819-1892)

Born in Long Island, New York. Poet, journalist and essayist, best known for LEAVES OF GRASS (1855), which was occasionally banned, and the poems ‘I Sing the Body Electric’ and ‘Song of Myself.’ Whitman incorporated natural speech rhythms into poetry. He disregarded metre, but the overall effect has a melodic character.

Àngels me envió al mail hace un par de días el trailer de Leaves of Grass. ¡Por fín lo tenemos!

Ahora sólo falta que llegue el momento del estreno en España… y veamos a Norton haciendo doblete

By Anthony D Jacques

Well, since it’s been almost two weeks and I’m beginning to get a bit stir crazy, I thought I might come up with a top ten list of things to do while on worker’s comp.

If nothing else, making this list should at least help me come up with some more ideas, because I’ve been drawing a blank today and daytime TV are making my brain-meat more dummer.

10: Learn to type with one hand

Okay, this one is more of a necessity than a choice, but that’s why it’s at the bottom of my ten. It’s actually sort of annoying, but I’m getting faster. Let’s just hope we don’t get carpal tunnel in the good arm as a result!

9: Catch up on some reading

I started off with Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and it’s fantastic, but let’s be honest, I think Whitman is better in small doses. It’s not a book to plow through in a weekend. It’s something to savor, like a fine wine or pipe tobacco.

I also ordered Sam Harris’s End of Faith from Amazon and it came in the mail yesterday. So far, it’s great.

8: Call your utility providers to make sure you’re not being overcharged

This one can go both ways. Since my wife works from home via her computer and an IP phone, and since our internet has been intermittent, and since our internet provider has been unable to fix the issue; so far they’ve credited our bill $70.00 altogether. Worth it!

However, when I noticed our last name was wrong on our utilities bill, that call may have cost me. Looks like our electric meter was broken, so every month we were only charged $5.62 for power. The new meter is not broken, so our new bill is now correct even though it’s suddenly $40.00 higher. Oh well…

7: Break in a new pipe

The new Peter Stokkebye

This one falls into the wishful thinking category at present, since I’ve had a wicked cold for about a week. But it looks like the cold is ebbing, so hopefully this weekend will be different.

Which is awesome, because the wife got me a great Peter Stokkebye for our anniversary last weekend. Her surprise gift to me was to take me to one of the largest pipe shops in the area where I could take my pick. (I guess I inspired her since a few weeks ago, for her birthday, I took her out jewelry shopping and she ended up with a blue diamond ring. Worth it.)

6: Post old blogs you already wrote but didn’t post for one reason or another

Yeah, this may not have been the best idea. The last few topics were mostly stuff I’d already written but I wasn’t sure about, and it turns out I was right. Not a whole heck of a lot of conversation going on. I should trust my instincts more.

5: Catch up on odd jobs around the house

Oh, I meant to say: Supervise the wife as she catches up on odd jobs around the house. Come on, I have a bum arm!

4: Start a new habit, like napping

This may have been half because of the aforementioned wicked-bad cold, but I have had some awesome naps lately. Which is weird because I used to hate the idea of taking a nap. Really what I hated was waking up at odd afternoon hours. I just don’t like that moment when you’re not sure what day it is.

Wait… what day is it?

3: Make some mix tapes

Now there’s a good idea. See, my wife’s car doesn’t have an MP3 player input, so even though I’ve made her some playlists on the iPod for when we drive in my car, this does not work in her car.

Solution: Mix tapes. Er… CD’s. I mean, who even has a cassette player these days?

2: Spend more time with the family

What kind of husband/father would I be if this weren’t near the top of my list?

For starters, Adelaide and I have been reading a lot of books together. Or I’ve been reading and she’s been drooling on them, but it’s the same difference at her age. And of course, there have been many family walks to the park, and lots of home videos and such. Good times.

Which, in some strange way, brings me to the number one thing to do when you’re on worker’s comp….

1: Shave your head into a Mohawk

Cause why not? Who knows when I’ll be heading back to work, so I may as well rock a hawk while the rocking is good.

Yes, there will be pictures.

Remember Dipthong?

How about the artist formally known as Prince?

Know why he changed his name? Because he was trapped in an onerous contract with the label who “published” his music. Here’s how Wikipedia sums it up:

In 1993, during negotiations regarding the release of Prince’s album The Gold Experience, a legal battle ensued between Warner Bros. and Prince over the artistic and financial control of Prince’s output. During the lawsuit, Prince appeared in public with the word “slave” written on his cheek. Prince explained his name change as follows:

“The first step I have taken towards the ultimate goal of emancipation from the chains that bind me to Warner Bros. was to change my name from Prince to the Love Symbol. Prince is the name that my mother gave me at birth. Warner Bros. took the name, trademarked it, and used it as the main marketing tool to promote all of the music that I wrote. The company owns the name Prince and all related music marketed under Prince. I became merely a pawn used to produce more money for Warner Bros… I was born Prince and did not want to adopt another conventional name. The only acceptable replacement for my name, and my identity, was the Love Symbol, a symbol with no pronunciation, that is a representation of me and what my music is about. This symbol is present in my work over the years; it is a concept that has evolved from my frustration; it is who I am. It is my name.”

Warner Bro. finally severed its contract with Dipthong and the public cheered. This year, Dipthong is self-publishing his songs from his own website:

On January 3, 2009, a new website LotusFlow3r.com was launched, streaming some of the recently-aired material (“Crimson and Clover”, “(There’ll Never B) Another Like Me” and “Here Eye Come”) and promising opportunities to listen to and buy music by Prince and guests, watch videos and buy concert tickets for future events. On January 31, Prince released two more songs on LotusFlow3r.com: “Disco Jellyfish”, and “Another Boy”. “Chocolate Box”, “A Colonized Mind”, and “All This Love” have since been released on the website.

Dipthong isn’t alone. A number of better known bands, like Radiohead, are increasingly severing their ties with the music industry (their publishers). Meanwhile, up and coming garage bands are “publishing” themselves on You-tube, distributing their own MP3s, promoting their own digital albums and printing their own CDs.

So, back in 2006, while Slushpile.Net can write a post entitled Why People Hate Self-published Authors, the responses to the post oddly sidestep the question of perception (which is what the post is all about). Whether or not Slushpile believes Indie publishing, for example, is the same as self-publishing, the perception of most listeners is not so refined. People don’t hate self-published bands or musicians even when they, mistakenly or not, assume they are self-published. Readers don’t hate self-published authors or poets. That’s sheer nonsense. Readers, if they hate anything, hate bad music, bad literature and bad art, but that’s separate from self-publishing.

The public s is always ready for good music and good literature.

They don’t care how it ends up in their hands.

So why the double standard? No one sniffs about “self-published bands” and yet that is precisely what many musicians are doing. They are self-publishing. Their version of  self-publishing might be a couple hundred dollars worth of studio and audio software, and maybe a decent webcam. And where, I ask, are the patronizing posts by bloggers and other musicians warning them that, without a producer and label, they’re headed for mediocrity at best, or worse, derision? They may be out there, but they’re drowned out by the public. Maybe times have changed since 2006?

Substitute editor for producer and publisher for label.

You get the idea. While bands are eagerly exploring ways to publish and disseminate their own work, poets who self-publish are treated like wayward children.

Meanwhile, the irony of bloggers sniffing about the self-published seems to be an irony universally (from what I’ve seen) unacknowledged and unexamined. How many self-published articles are there about the pitfalls of self-publishing? I can’t be bothered to count. They serve as their own best examples of what can go wrong.

The way it used to be

In the old days, the Elizabethans for instance, there was no established copyright law. Any play or poem that was popular and unpublished was a prime target for a printer. Many scholars assert that Shakespeare’s sonnets were published without his permission, by Thomas Thorpe. Plays by Jonson, Webster, Middleton and others were frequently printed without their knowledge or approval. A playgoer (or actor), with a good memory, might transcribe a play for a printer. Many “corrupt” copies appeared. The most famous example, perhaps, being from the Bad Quarto Shakespeare’s Hamlet:

Hamlet To be, or not to be, I there’s the point,
To Die, to sleepe, is that all? I all:
No, to sleepe, to dreame, I mary there it goes,
For in that dreame of death, when wee awake,
And borne before an euerlasting Iudge,
From whence no passenger euer retur’nd,
The vndiscouered country, at whose sight
The happy smile, and the accursed damn’d.
But for this, the ioyfull hope of this,
Whol’d beare the scornes and flattery of the world,
Scorned by the right rich, the rich curssed of the poore?
The widow being oppressd, the orphan wrong’d;
The taste of hunger, or a tirants raigne,
And thousand more calamities besides,
To grunt and sweate vnder this weary life,
When that he may his full Quietus make,
With a bare bodkin, who would this indure,
But for a hope of something after death?
Which pusles the braine, and doth confound the sence,
Which makes vs rather beare those euilles we haue,
Than flie to others that we know not of.
I that, O this conscience makes cowardes of vs all,
Lady in thy orizons, be all my sinnes remembred.

While some scholars argue that this was an early version, most ascribe this passage to poor memory. The bad quarto comes from 1603, published by the booksellers Nicholas Ling and John Trundell, printed by Valentine Simmes.  (See Wikipedia for more information.) The printer, no doubt, was eager to make some profit from a very popular play.

A Note on the Folio introduction by Heminge and Condell: What’s so fascinating about the brief introduction to Shakespeare’s first folio (and something that, to my knowledge, no other scholar has commented on) is the implication, possibly, that had “[Shakespeare] himself… lived” he would “have set forth, and overseen his owne writings.” One frequently hears scholars question why Shakespeare showed no interest in publishing his own works, seemingly disinterested in his own literary heritage. But this impression may not be true. Shakespeare would surely have known of Jonson’s effort to publish his own folio. They were friends, colleagues and rivals. The impression that Heminge and Condell give (men who knew Shakespeare intimately) was that Shakespeare intended to self-publish his works. His death seems to have been unexpected by all.

For all intent and purposes, a writer’s work was public domain the moment his words spilled from his brain. Anything he wrote was fair game if he did not, himself, self publish. Shakespeare’s friend and contemporary, Ben Jonson, wasn’t about to let his hard labor become the catalog of an unscrupulous printer. The loss of profit to Jonson and his troupe was bad enough, but Jonson had other reasons. He was proud of his work. Jonson lavished tremendous care to make sure the text of his plays were clean and elegant. He was a bricklayer’s son but he wanted to be remembered as a great poet and dramatist. And Ben Jonson was, as far as I know, the first self published poet to issue a collected edition of works and who wasn’t also a member of the nobility. Ben Jonson’s folios, published in 1616, treated his plays as serious literature, rather than ephemera. His folio possibly and probably served as an inspiration to whoever subsidized the publishing of Shakespeare’s plays (1623) – most scholars credit Shakespeare’s colleagues with the effort, but Germaine Greer argues that while Shakespeare’s colleagues may have assembled the plays, it was Shakespeare’s widow, Anne Hathaway, who actually subsidized the printing of the First Folio (an argument that appeals to me). In any case, the first folio was effectively self-published. Jonson knew that if he wanted his text printed cleanly and professionally, he had to do it himself.

Here is how the Encyclopedia Britannica sums up the free-for-all:

Publication of drama was left, along with much of the poetry and the popular literature, to publishers who were not members of the Stationers’ Company and to the outright pirates, who scrambled for what they could get and but for whom much would never have been printed. To join this fringe, the would-be publisher had only to get hold of a manuscript, by fair means or foul, enter it as his copy (or dispense with the formality), and have it printed. Just such a man was Thomas Thorpe, the publisher of Shakespeare’s sonnets (1609); the mysterious “Mr. W.H.” in the dedication is thought by some to be the person who procured him his copy. The first Shakespeare play to be published (Titus Andronicus, 1594) was printed by a notorious pirate, John Danter, who also brought out, anonymously, a defective Romeo and Juliet (1597), largely from shorthand notes made during performance. Eighteen of the plays appeared in “good” and “bad” quartos before the great First Folio in 1623. A typical imprint of the time, of the “good” second quarto of Hamlet (1604), reads: “Printed by I.R. for N.L. and are to be sold at his shoppe under Saint Dunston’s Church in Fleetstreet”; i.e., printed by James Roberts for Nicholas Ling. For the First Folio, a large undertaking of more than 900 pages, a syndicate of five was formed, headed by Edward Blount and William Jaggard; the Folio was printed, none too well, by William’s son, Isaac.

What’s interesting is that it wasn’t until the 19th century that publishing became the industry that we recognize today. Britannica states:

The functions peculiar to the publisher—i.e., selecting, editing, and designing the material; arranging its production and distribution; and bearing the financial risk or the responsibility for the whole operation—often merged in the past with those of the author, the printer, or the bookseller. With increasing specialization, however, publishing became, certainly by the 19th century, an increasingly distinct occupation. Most modern Western publishers purchase printing services in the open market, solicit manuscripts from authors, and distribute their wares to purchasers through shops, mail order, or direct sales.

Walt Whitman came of age during this transition to modern publishing. Nonetheless, he self-published Leaves of Grass, and though he never became wealthy as a result, he became a nationally recognized poet. Today, he’s known as one of America’s greatest poets. Emily Dickinson didn’t try to court editors or publishers after her initial negative reception. After she died, her family friend Mabel Todd, and niece, Martha Dickinson, edited and published Dickinson’s poetry — in essence, they self-published. The first nationally known African American Poet, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, also self-published.  And here’s a list from John Kremer’s website, the the self-published hall of fame.

Margaret Atwood, L. Frank Baum, William Blake, Ken Blanchard, Robert Bly, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lord Byron, Willa Cather, Pat Conroy, Stephen Crane, e.e. cummings, W.E.B. DuBois, Alexander Dumas, T.S. Eliot, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Benjamin Franklin, Zane Grey, Thomas Hardy, E. Lynn Harris, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ernest Hemingway, Robinson Jeffers, Spencer Johnson, Stephen King, Rudyard Kipling, Louis L’Amour, D.H. Lawrence, Rod McKuen, Marlo Morgan, John Muir, Anais Nin, Thomas Paine, Tom Peters, Edgar Allen Poe, Alexander Pope, Beatrix Potter, Ezra Pound, Marcel Proust, Irma Rombauer, Carl Sandburg, Robert Service, George Bernard Shaw, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Upton Sinclair, Gertrude Stein, William Strunk, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoi, Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, and Virginia Woolf.

The tradition of self-publishing is longer (if not richer) than the history of modern publishing. So when Slushpile.Net can ask the question: “And what is the ‘long and valued tradition’ exactly?” The answer is in that list of authors. Readers are reading self-published poets and authors every day.

The mediocrity myth

So, given self-publishing’s history, why do so many bloggers and pundits act as though self-publishing were a new development? — a modern day smear on the “tradition” of publishing? Why do they wring their hands warning us against an inevitable onslaught of mediocrity?

Probably because, along with examples of great literature, there are many examples of abject mediocrity.

But self-publishers hardly corner the market on mediocrity. Editors and publishers have published gobs of proof-read, clean and well bound mediocrity. There seems to be an unspoken assumption that if one has the title editor, then one is qualified to publish literature and naturally knows the difference between good literature and bad.

History disagrees.

Being a good editor is like being a good poet or novelist. Great editors elevate their profession to an art form. However ( just as there are only a handful of truly inspired poets and novelists in any given generation) there are only a handful of truly inspired editors and publishers. All the rest range from qualified to truly mediocre. (The same is true of critics, by the way. Many critics probably wouldn’t recognize a great author or poet if one bit them on their derrière.) Birds of a feather flock together. A mediocre editor, unable to perceive the difference between mediocre and good literature will publish reams of mediocre literature fully convinced that his dossier of poets and authors is the creme de la creme and that his or her judgment is unparalleled. A mediocre critic will sing the praises of a mediocre author and poet. A committee of editors is no better. If committees were insurance against poor judgment, the USSR would have conquered the world. While a good editor can be indispensable, they can’t transmute lead into gold (if they can even recognize gold).

“Between 1908 and 1930 the Rev. E.E. Bradford published some eleven volumes of verse in praise of adolescents and young men, each of which received respectful, if occasionally guarded, notices from the national and provincial press. Dr. Bradford was, I suspect, a uniquely English phenomena, in that no only had he managed to convince himself that courting adolescent boys was the purest activity known to man (much purer than pursuing women, for example), but he succeeded in getting the press to enter into a conspiracy of polite silence as to the obvious tendency of his verses. ‘His books were widely reviewed and widely praised, never, as far as I can judge, with the slightest hint of irony’, writes Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy. Here is The Westminster Review, but it is absolutely typical, on Passing the Love of Women: “Friendship between man and youth form the theme of many of Dr. Bradford’s poems. He is alive to the beauty of unsullied youth as was Plato.” [The Joys of Bad Verse p.293]

This is what happens when a mediocre author is met by mediocre critics. The book, The Joys of Bad Verse, is replete with other examples. And the collusion of mediocrity with mediocrity is as vibrant as it ever was. A reader can look at the back matter of any book, at any number of reviews, and be forgiven if they conclude that the literary world is awash with geniuses.

It takes herculean mediocrity to break through this morass. William Topaz McGonagall was one such poet, lovingly discussed in Parson’s book and elsewhere. It has been famously said of McGonagall: “He was so giftedly bad that he backed unwittingly into genius.”

• Just because an author is published by a publisher doesn’t mean their work is any less mediocre.
• And just because an author is self-published doesn’t mean an author’s work is any more mediocre.

All the while self-published authors are treated like wayward children. They are warned against sloppy editing and told  that they will have to promote their books without the aid of a publisher’s deep pockets. ‘Don’t expect easy success’ – they say.  (As though this thought had never occurred to the self-published author). If one is going to spend hundreds (sometimes thousands of dollars) publishing ones own work, these issues have indeed occurred to them. On the other hand, in fairness to bloggers, they don’t necessarily have to think about quality issues or “return on investment”. Most bloggers self-publish for free. They can afford to be mediocre, so maybe these constraints really are news to them.

Will there be mediocrity? Yes.

But so what? Great art, whether in poetry, music or art, was and is inspired by mediocrity too.

And, to be honest, for the majority of readers, poetry doesn’t have to be great to be enjoyed. Novels don’t have to be works of art to be enjoyed. The dread (that authors and poets might not be vetted by an editor) is based on an uninformed knowledge of literary history and an unfounded faith in the talents of editors and publishers. There are good editors and there are bad editors.

Why spend so much time discussing mediocrity? Because the idea of mediocrity and self-publishing is tightly interwoven and false. One frequently hears that the only reason an author choses to self-publish is because they couldn’t be “legitimately” published (they’re mediocre). Even a cursory glance at a list of the well-known authors who have self-published should dispel this myth. There are a variety of reasons an author may chose to publish his or her own work. And just because an editor rejects an author’s work  doesn’t mean the work is mediocre. It may mean the editor is mediocre. Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time was rejected more than 26 times.  There’s a balanced view to be struck. While self-publishing has bequeathed the world plenty of mediocre literature, so has “legitimate” publishing.

Types of Self-Publishing

Rather than reinvent the wheel – here is Wikipedia’s overview as of October 8, 2009:

Vanity publishing

Vanity press

Vanity publishing is a pejorative term, referring to a publisher contracting with authors regardless of the quality and marketability of their work. They appeal to the writer’s vanity and desire to become a published author, and make the majority of their money from fees rather than from sales. Vanity presses may call themselves joint venture or subsidy presses; but in a vanity press arrangement, the author pays all of the cost of publication and undertakes all of the risk.

In his guide How to Publish Yourself author Peter Finch states that such presses are “to be avoided at all costs.” Because there is no independent entity making a judgment about their quality, and because many of them are published at a loss, vanity press works are often perceived as deserving skepticism from distributors, retailers, or readers. Some writers knowingly and willingly enter into such deals, placing more importance on getting their work published than on profiting from it.

Subsidy publishers

A subsidy publisher distributes books under its own imprint, and is therefore selective in deciding which books to publish. Subsidy publishers, like vanity publishers, take payment from the author to print and bind a book, but contribute a portion of the cost as well as adjunct services such as editing, distribution, warehousing, and some degree of marketing. Often, the adjunct services provided are minimal. As with commercial publishers, the books are owned by the publisher and remain in the publisher’s possession, with authors receiving royalties for any copies that are sold. Most subsidy publishers also keep a portion of the rights from any book that they publish. Generally, authors have little control over production aspects such as cover design.

True self-publishing

True self-publishing means authors undertake the entire cost of publication themselves, and handle all marketing, distribution, storage, etc. All rights remain with the author, the completed books are the writer’s property, and the writer gets all the proceeds of sales. Self-publishing can be more cost-effective than vanity or subsidy publishing and can result in a much higher-quality product, because authors can put every aspect of the process out to bid rather than accepting a preset package of services.

Print on Demand (POD)

Print on demand

Short run printing is also called Print-on-demand (POD) or Print Quantity Needed (PQN). POD publishers generally do not screen submissions prior to publication, and many are web-based. They accept uploaded digital content as Microsoft Word documents, text files, or RTF files, as printing services for anyone who is willing to pay. Authors choose from a selection of packages, or design a unique printing package that meets their requirements. For an additional cost, a POD publisher may offer services such as book jacket design with professional art direction; content, line, and copy-editing; indexing; proofreading; and marketing and publicity. Some POD publishers offer publication as e-books in addition to hardcover and paperback. Some POD publishers will offer ISBN (International Standard Book Numbers) service, which allows a title to be searchable and listed for sale on websites.

Many critics dismiss POD as another type of vanity press. One major difference is that POD publishers have a connection to retail outlets like Amazon and Books in Print that vanity presses generally do not.

• Another comparison is offered at Self-publishing.org.
• For a more thorough treatment than either of these (and with links to other articles) try Writer’s Digest.

Which do I recommend?

I don’t.

Let others who have had more experience do the recommending. There are some helpful websites I have listed below. None of them are ideal. The best information is from those who have actually gone through the process, and I’ve included some of their comments from Slushpile.net. (I self-published but that was almost ten years ago.)

I’m also attempting to create a new website, Self-Published Poets, devoted to poets who have self-published. It’s still in a formative stage. The purpose is to provide a centralized catalog where poets can find each other, find each others work – and readers can find us. The poetry of academia has its own network. Self-published poets need theirs. The point of this post was to spell out why self-publishers shouldn’t be embarrassed. I’ve self-published. I’m proud of it. I have books to sell and I consider myself to be in damned good company. Ben Jonson? Walt Whitman? E.E. Cummings? Mark Twain? Count me in.

I do think that self-publishing should be strongly considered by poets, perhaps more so than by authors writing in other genres. If a novelist is a good novelist, national ambition isn’t unreasonable. The broader public still seeks out and enjoys a good novel. I can’t imagine that the self-published novelist could ever match the promotional heft of a real publishing house – or realize the same financial gains.

The same can be said for children’s writers and YA novelists. If writers in these genres choose to self-publish, I’m all for it, but self-publishing should probably be considered a starting point rather than the end game. Again, nothing matches the reach of a traditional publishing house. They want to make money. And if you demonstrate that your writing can make money, they will want your work.

• Self-publishing is a business decision.

That’s the bottom line, or so it seems to me. If it makes sense to self-publish from a business standpoint; if you have a plan and the commitment to follow through, go for it.

As for poetry…

The reading public is still buying lots of poetry, but not the verse of contemporary poets. Contemporary poets like to blame the public, but I blame the poets. In either case, a nationwide audience for a given book of poetry is a long shot.  If you have that ambition, I recommend genius – either as poet or self-promoter.

Short of that, if you can land a job in academia (a college or university), that’s probably the best way to advance your career. You have an instant audience (your students) and you will be expected to give readings. (The college or university will, in effect, promote you if they think you’re an asset.) And being a poet in academia has the added benefit of an instant network (both good and bad).   Another common option is to submit your book manuscript to contests. Many new poets see their first book published by winning such contests. Alternately, a small press might consider you if you have made a name for yourself in poetry journals and chapbooks.

These are all legitimate and time consuming ways to pursue a published book. But no matter which route you pursue , small presses reach a comparatively small audience. Don’t expect to make a living from your book’s proceeds.

If you can afford it, think about self-publishing. It’s a reasonable option for poets. If you’re energetic and committed, you can probably do as much for your poetry as any small press.  But don’t take my word for it. Check out the poets at Self-Published Poets. See what they say and take a look at their books.

Noteworthy Websites and Comments

• Of all the links provided (and if you only read one) read Robert Bagg’s  essay, the last one listed.
  

Elderberry Press

“The prejudice against a writer who dares take the initiative with his book after a thumbs down from folks who never read a line of it also makes selling self-published books and small press books difficult.

Naida is right. The system is corrupt as is the world. Merit has nothing to with what is published. After spending a year sweating blood to write a novel, tossing it into a sock drawer isn’t easy if you know it’s good.

I published my own novel years ago and have since published two hundred books by other authors. It’s been a great adventure and I’m always looking for new writers to read and publish.” (…)

Bridge House Books

“THE TERM ‘SELF PUBLISHER’ MISSES THE MARK FOR MANY. My company has 5 titles in print – books written by me as well as others. I pay all costs. My books are distributed nationally. I hire professional editors and graphic artists. I use offset printers, not POD (used it once but the inflated price/unit hurt sales). My income after expenses is far more than most mid-list novelists in big houses. I spend beaucoup on printing and reprinting, but I’ve been in the black since the first six weeks. I employ an associate to handle much of the business. Despite these costs, a substantial savings CD informs me that readers like my books. To my other writers, I am a publisher (are they supposed to say, “I’m published by a self publisher?”—that would mean themselves). After I launch the 3rd novel in my trilogy, Bridge House Books will continue to publish fine literature.” (…)

Self Publishing

I unsubscribed from a trade author’s posts to my Amazon Plog today after he quoted from and linked to the blog post of another trade fiction writer beating up on self publishers. I’m not giving either of their names because I don’t want to generate publicity for them, but I thought the basic phenomena is worthy of comment. Why would a couple of successful trade authors feel they have the either the need or the expertise to write about self publishing? (…)

Self Publishing 2.0

“[I] recently published a blog post on why trade authors, in particular, hate self publishers. Part of it is sincere in the sense that they are trying to prevent people from getting ripped off by author services companies, but a lot of it has to do with the belief that self publishers haven’t earned the right to call themselves “authors”.

I’ve done both, and self publishing is more work and often more rewarding than being a trade author. Everybody needs some lucky breaks along the way for either career. Too many trade authors come to believe that they could start over tommorow with another name and no phone numbers or e-mails of editors and agents, and be right back on top in no time. They forget that timing is everything and times change.” (…)

Näyttäisikö pilvessä oleminen paljon paremmalta kuin pilvessä olemisen näytteleminen elokuvassa, mietiskeli Norton esittäessään ruohoa kasvattavaa roolihahmoa elokuvassa “Leaves of grass”.

Norton esittää elokuvassa kaksoisveljeksiä: huippuprofessori Billiä ja Bradya, jota näyttelijä kuvaili “vesiviljeleväksi puutarhanhoidon neroksi, joka on kehittänyt tavan kasvattaa Amerikan turboahdetuinta pilveä”.

Billin kyläillessä Bradyn luona Oklahomassa, ei kestä kauaa ennen kuin akateemikko iskee kyntensä velimiehen kätköön. Valmistautuessaan elokuvaan Norton mietti, pitäisikö hänen lähestyä kaksoisroolia todellisesta metodinäyttelemisen näkökulmasta.

“Pohdin, näyttäsikö pilvessä oleminen paremmalta kuin pilvisen näytteleminen”, hän kertoi äskettäin Toronton elokuvafestivaaleilla.

Hän tajusi kuitenkin ennen pitkää, että elokuvantekemisen vaatimukset tekivät ajatuksen polttelusta epärealistiseksi. “Totuus on, että elokuvien tekeminen on niin – – erityisesti, kun esittää jotakin sellaista kuin kaksosia – – siinä on pakko pystyä keskittymään. En usko, että pystyisin toimimaan tilanteen vaatimalla tavalla.”

Eräässä vaiheessa haastattelua Norton sanoi kuitenkin ovelasti virnistäen: “Olemme nyt Kanadassa, ja vesiviljelty tavara täällä päin on tosi huolella tuotettua!”

Vaikka hän ei ollutkaan pilvessä kuvauksissa, Oscar-ehdokkaana ollut näyttelijä toi menneitä yrttikokemuksiaan hahmoihinsa. Erityisesti kohtaamisia lääketason tuotetta mukanaan tuoneiden kaverien kanssa. “Muistan, että minulla oli sellainen tunne että minut nostettiin ylös korvistani”, hän muisteli. “Elokuvassa on kohta, josta pidän hyvin paljon, kun professoriveli ottaa ensimmäiset henkoset veljensä turboluokan erityistuotteesta, hänen leukapielensä leviävät isommaksi kuin hänen päänsä. Nauran kun katson sitä. Minusta se on aika tarkka kuvaus.”

Yksi asia, joka ei saa Nortonia hymyilemään, on kannabiksen kieltolaki – hän on suuri laillistamisen puolestapuhuja, kutsuen sitä “pelkästään järkeväksi”.

“Kulttuurissamme on tätä naurettavaa tekopyhyyttä, jotkut kontrolloidut aineet ovat laillisia, toisin kuin jotkut muut”, hän jatkoi. “Taloudelliset argumentit, argumentit liittyen toimeenpanoon, turvallisuuteen ja hoitoon, ovat jotain, mihin meidän on päästävä, järkevämpään tilanteeseen.”

Lähde:

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1622328/story.jhtml

Un nuevo video de una entrevista a Norton sobre su nueva película Leaves of grass.
Como siempre, gracias a Àngels por enviarme al correo del Blog las últimas novedades sobre Norton. ¡Se agradece mucho! Sobretodo ahora que no dispongo de tanto tiempo libre como antes.

Os recuerdo que los videos que se van publicando en los posts de Edward Norton Blog, también los podéis encontrar en la sección Media.

Toward the end of “The Poet,” Emerson writes, famously: “I look in vain fro the poet whom I describe.” Famous, in large part, because it sounds like he is describing the kind of poetry we will get, in the next decade, with Whitman and Leaves of Grass. Many have imagined Whitman reading these lines and answering the call. When we get to Whitman, we will certainly get back to Emerson’s conception of the poet and see if it does indeed make sense to think of Whitman’s poetry as Emersonian.

But I also want to open a larger door on this question and suggest that we continue to think about the kind of poet/poetry–and more broadly, poetics–that Emerson describes: and to ask where we do or don’t find this in American culture today, or in more recent years. In terms of find Emerson’s poet actually in the form of poetry, one American poet from late 20th century that is often thought of as Emersonian is A.R. Ammons. You can see from this description from the Poetry Foundation that he is viewed as Emerson’s “progeny.” Here is an example, his poem “Poetics”:

I look for the way
things will turn
out spiralling from a center,
the shape
things will take to come forth in

so that the birch tree white
touched black at branches
will stand out
wind-glittering
totally its apparent self:

I look for the forms
things want to come as

from what black wells of possibility,
how a thing will
unfold:

not the shape on paper — though
that, too — but the
uninterfering means on paper:

not so much looking for the shape
as being available
to any shape that may be
summoning itself
through me
from the self not mine but ours.

Where else might we look for Emerson’s poet–outside of poetry, or at least, outside of places we traditionally think of as poetry?  We will see that Emerson reiterates, particularly in “Poetry and Imagination,” that poetry is found in the low and common and familiar, in the street–and thus, he argues, people say they hate poetry and are in fact, in their everyday lives, poetic. In that sense, do we have in more recent years, or at any point in the last 100 years, an Emersonian poet of the everyday? Whom would you suggest?

If we follow Emerson’s thinking (the kind we see in the “Shakspeare” essay, for example, from Representative Men), this latter-day Emersonian poet would show more than a line of “influence” from Emerson. He or she (or it, given that I suppose it could be some sort of intelligent machine, these days) would at some level be more Emerson than Emerson, by showing/revealing the “Emerson” we share with him.

The editors of the Norton edition of Emerson’s Prose suggest (in footnote to “The Poet,” p. 192) that Emily Dickinson’s “inebriate of air” is inspired by Emerson’s discussion of the “intellect inebriated,” the poet who gets drunk on nature and genius, drinking God’s wine. See what you think; here is Dickinson (in a 1924 edited version of the poem):

I TASTE a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!
Inebriate of air am I,	5
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.
When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove’s door,	10
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!
Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler	15
Leaning against the sun!

ACTUALIZADO

Siento el error, pero acabo de percatarme que esta entrevista no es actual. He publicado el post antes de leerla completa y no me he dado cuenta. De todas formas nunca viene mal recordar, ¿no?

Quién no recuerda los personajes oscuros interpretados por Norton en “El Club de la Pelea” o “Historia Americana X”, el actor está de regreso al cine arriesgado con una película cuyo título recuerda al poeta Walt Whitman y hace alusión a la mariguana: “Leaves of Grass” (Hojas de Hierba)

Con un tímido Sol que no se anima a salir en Toronto, tuvimos el lujo de compartir un desayuno con Edward Norton para hablar de la película “Leaves of Grass” (Hojas de Hierba) [...]

Leer la entrevista completa

Fuente: vanguardia.com.mx
Y de paso aprovecho el post para dejaros un video donde podemos ver los dos aspectos de Norton en la película.

Gracias Ángels por el video.

Each of us is inevitable,

Each of us limitless–each of us with his or her right upon the earth,

Each of us allowed the eternal purport of the earth,

Each of us here as divinely as any is here.

~ Uncle Walt

In addition to preparing for next month’s tour I’m moving for the sixteenth time in seven years. And that’s not counting the year I spent living out of my car. Once again I’m hauling around these absurdly heavy boxes of hundreds and hundreds of books. Books I’ve read and ones I probably never will get to.

One of the first distinctly “grown-up” epiphanies I had was sitting in English class, surveying the summer reading options, and realizing there was no way I could read all the books I wanted to that summer. Or in my lifetime. Now when I go to a bookstore (something I try to avoid) this bittersweet knowledge accompanies the initial thrill of building a tower at the end of the aisle.

My new year’s resolution was to read less and I guess I got what I asked for because I hardly ever read anymore. As a writer I need to protect any precious “free” time I have. However the other night while packing I came across The Old Man and The Sea, which somehow slipped through my primary education. As it’s short I decided to take a break by the fire – we are literally burning down the house -

(that’s part of the garage – it burns really well! – please be sure to check your smoke alarms)

- and to take advantage of a luxury I will miss the next couple months of traveling. Inside I discovered that this copy was from my mom’s ninth grade English class. Not only did this little book carry one of the greatest pieces ever written in the English language, but it also carried personal history, complete with practiced forgeries:

I smiled at the memory of sitting in my high school English class and practicing my autograph as my classmates discussed themes and content when I just really wanted to talk about the beauty of a particular line or the music of a particular word. This is why I willingly choose back pain – carrying these boxes up and down stairs every few months – over a gadget like Kindle. Because there is nothing more beautiful than curling up with a real book made from real trees with the real smells, thoughts, and impressions of previous readers.

It might even be more intimate than going to see someone sing onstage… which is what I have to get ready for now. I’m recording a webcast this afternoon before my show at Googie’s @ the Living Room! I hope you’ll come, or if you’re not in NYC, stay home with a good read.

But first I must cross the moat that is now surrounding our house:

Oh, how I loved reading those princess tales. Never thought I’d have my own moat! Cool.

I’ll leave you with one of my favorites from Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass:

WHOEVER you are, holding me now in hand,
Without one thing, all will be useless,
I give you fair warning, before you attempt me further,
I am not what you supposed, but far different.

Who is he that would become my follower?
Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections?

The way is suspicious—the result uncertain, perhaps destructive;
You would have to give up all else—I alone would expect to be your God, sole and exclusive,
Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,
The whole past theory of your life, and all conformity to the lives around you, would have to be abandon’d;
Therefore release me now, before troubling yourself any further—Let go your hand from my shoulders,
Put me down, and depart on your way.

Or else, by stealth, in some wood, for trial,
Or back of a rock, in the open air,
(For in any roof’d room of a house I emerge not—nor in company,
And in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gawk, or unborn, or dead,)
But just possibly with you on a high hill—first watching lest any person, for miles around, approach unawares,
Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea, or some quiet island,
Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,
With the comrade’s long-dwelling kiss, or the new husband’s kiss,
For I am the new husband, and I am the comrade.

Or, if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,
Where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip,
Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;
For thus, merely touching you, is enough—is best,
And thus, touching you, would I silently sleep and be carried eternally.

But these leaves conning, you con at peril,
For these leaves, and me, you will not understand,
They will elude you at first, and still more afterward—I will certainly elude you,
Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold!
Already you see I have escaped from you.

For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book,
Nor is it by reading it you will acquire it,
Nor do those know me best who admire me, and vauntingly praise me,
Nor will the candidates for my love, (unless at most a very few,) prove victorious,
Nor will my poems do good only—they will do just as much evil, perhaps more;
For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not hit—that which I hinted at;
Therefore release me, and depart on your way.

Walt Whitman (West Hills, Long Island, 31 de Maio de 1819 – 26 de Março de 1892), poeta norte-americano.

Whitman foi o poeta que primeiro conseguiu captar a essencia do povo Americano e das mudanças plíticas que o país passou depois da guerra civil americana.  É considerado o melhor poeta americano e o mais representativo de um estilo poético livre e moderno. Autores como fernando Pessoa se referem aele como mestre e influência importante. Seu livro mais famoso é o Leaves of Grass (Folhas de Relva) de 1900.

Poemas traduzidos por mim mesmo:

Walt Whitman

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”
Walt Whitman

VAHN