Every Hour, Every Atom: A Collection of Walt Whitman's Early Notebooks and Fragments
by Walt Whitman edited by Zachary Turpin and Matt Miller
University of Iowa Press, 2020 Paper: 978-1-60938-703-7 | eISBN: 978-1-60938-704-4 Library of Congress Classification PS3203T87 2020 Dewey Decimal Classification 811.3
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Some of the dimmest years in Walt Whitman’s life precede the advent of Leaves of Grass in 1855, when he was working as a journalist and fiction writer. Starting around 1850, what he’d begun writing in his personal notebooks was far more enigmatic than anything he’d done before.
One of Whitman’s most secretive projects during this timeframe was a novel, Life and Adventures of Jack Engle; serialized anonymously in the spring of 1852, and rediscovered and properly published in 2017. The key to the novel’s later discovery were plot notes Whitman had made in one of his private notebooks.
Whitman’s invaluable notebooks have been virtually inaccessible to the public, until now. Maintaining the early notebooks’ wild, syncretic feel and sample illustrations of Whitman’s beautiful and unkempt pages, scholars Zachary Turpin and Matt Miller’s thorough transcriptions have made these notebooks available to all; sharing Whitman’s secret space for developing his poetry, his writing, his philosophy, and himself.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Zachary Turpin is assistant professor of English at the University of Idaho. He is editor of Life and Adventures of Jack Engle: The Lost Novel of Walt Whitman (Iowa, 2017). He lives in Moscow, Idaho.
Matt Miller is associate professor of English at Yeshiva University. He is author of Collage of Myself: Walt Whitman and the Making of Leaves of Grass. He lives in New York City.
REVIEWS
“It is one of the mysteries, maybe the mystery of American literature, that Walt Whitman, a carpenter’s son, a journalist laboring with no special distinction at his trade, produced in the middle of his thirties, one of the most original—and originary—works of American literature in ‘Song of Myself’ and Leaves of Grass. So it is thrilling that Zack Turpin and Matt Miller have given us this endlessly fascinating glimpse into the young poet’s imagination when he is, as he would say later, ‘simmering’ and on the edge of a miracle.”—Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, author, Summer Snow
— Robert Hass
“The publication of Walt Whitman’s very early poetry, Every Hour, Every Atom: Walt Whitman’s Early Notebooks and Fragments, is nothing short of a miracle. Here, made generally available for the first time, are the initial tremblings and rumblings of what would become Leaves of Grass. If I compare it to seeing a planet in its early stages of formation, I don’t consider that an exaggeration.”—Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer–Prize winner, The Hours
— Michael Cunningham
“This collection of Walt Whitman’s early notebooks and fragments, expertly collated and edited by Zachary Turpin and Matt Miller, is an indispensable contribution to the Whitman canon. In it, we see Whitman over the years scribbling down thoughts, impressions, and poetic passages that would appear in finished form in Leaves of Grass, his landmark contribution to world literature. Thanks to Turpin and Miller, we now have an accessible, affordable volume that shows Whitman’s spontaneous effusions bubbling to the surface.”—David S. Reynolds, author, Walt Whitman’s America
— David S. Reynolds
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword-Matt Miller
Introduction-Zachary Turpin
Key for Readers
Notebooks
Poem Incarnating the Mind
A Schoolmaster
No Doubt the Efflux
Talbot Wilson
You Know How
Autobiographical Data
Women
In His Presence
The Regular Old Followers
I Know a Rich Capitalist
9th Av.
The Scope of Government
George Walker
Dick Hunt
Calamus-Leaves/Live Oak, with Moss
W. Whitman Portland Av.
English Runic
81 Clerman
Excerpt from Words
Fragments
Dithyrambic
Is Rougher than It was
Wooding at Night
I Know Well Enough
The Genuine Miracles of Christ
Med Cophósis
Summer Duck
What we Call Literature
Picture of the Most Flowing Grandeur of a Man
Priests!
In Metaphysical Points
Nehemiah Whitman
Silence
Living Pictures
Of this Broad and Majestic Universe
Poet of Materialism
Loveblows
Rules for Composition
Sculpture
Sweet Flag
Make No Quotations
Light and Air!
The Only Way
In the West
Most Poets Finish
Produce Great Persons
The Great Construction of the New Bible
(Of the Great Poet)
All through Writings
Make the Works
Drops of my Blood
Broadaxe
Mocking All the Textbooks
As of Forms
Others May Praise What they Like
Poem of Materials
Notes
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Every Hour, Every Atom: A Collection of Walt Whitman's Early Notebooks and Fragments
by Walt Whitman edited by Zachary Turpin and Matt Miller
University of Iowa Press, 2020 Paper: 978-1-60938-703-7 eISBN: 978-1-60938-704-4
Some of the dimmest years in Walt Whitman’s life precede the advent of Leaves of Grass in 1855, when he was working as a journalist and fiction writer. Starting around 1850, what he’d begun writing in his personal notebooks was far more enigmatic than anything he’d done before.
One of Whitman’s most secretive projects during this timeframe was a novel, Life and Adventures of Jack Engle; serialized anonymously in the spring of 1852, and rediscovered and properly published in 2017. The key to the novel’s later discovery were plot notes Whitman had made in one of his private notebooks.
Whitman’s invaluable notebooks have been virtually inaccessible to the public, until now. Maintaining the early notebooks’ wild, syncretic feel and sample illustrations of Whitman’s beautiful and unkempt pages, scholars Zachary Turpin and Matt Miller’s thorough transcriptions have made these notebooks available to all; sharing Whitman’s secret space for developing his poetry, his writing, his philosophy, and himself.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Zachary Turpin is assistant professor of English at the University of Idaho. He is editor of Life and Adventures of Jack Engle: The Lost Novel of Walt Whitman (Iowa, 2017). He lives in Moscow, Idaho.
Matt Miller is associate professor of English at Yeshiva University. He is author of Collage of Myself: Walt Whitman and the Making of Leaves of Grass. He lives in New York City.
REVIEWS
“It is one of the mysteries, maybe the mystery of American literature, that Walt Whitman, a carpenter’s son, a journalist laboring with no special distinction at his trade, produced in the middle of his thirties, one of the most original—and originary—works of American literature in ‘Song of Myself’ and Leaves of Grass. So it is thrilling that Zack Turpin and Matt Miller have given us this endlessly fascinating glimpse into the young poet’s imagination when he is, as he would say later, ‘simmering’ and on the edge of a miracle.”—Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, author, Summer Snow
— Robert Hass
“The publication of Walt Whitman’s very early poetry, Every Hour, Every Atom: Walt Whitman’s Early Notebooks and Fragments, is nothing short of a miracle. Here, made generally available for the first time, are the initial tremblings and rumblings of what would become Leaves of Grass. If I compare it to seeing a planet in its early stages of formation, I don’t consider that an exaggeration.”—Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer–Prize winner, The Hours
— Michael Cunningham
“This collection of Walt Whitman’s early notebooks and fragments, expertly collated and edited by Zachary Turpin and Matt Miller, is an indispensable contribution to the Whitman canon. In it, we see Whitman over the years scribbling down thoughts, impressions, and poetic passages that would appear in finished form in Leaves of Grass, his landmark contribution to world literature. Thanks to Turpin and Miller, we now have an accessible, affordable volume that shows Whitman’s spontaneous effusions bubbling to the surface.”—David S. Reynolds, author, Walt Whitman’s America
— David S. Reynolds
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword-Matt Miller
Introduction-Zachary Turpin
Key for Readers
Notebooks
Poem Incarnating the Mind
A Schoolmaster
No Doubt the Efflux
Talbot Wilson
You Know How
Autobiographical Data
Women
In His Presence
The Regular Old Followers
I Know a Rich Capitalist
9th Av.
The Scope of Government
George Walker
Dick Hunt
Calamus-Leaves/Live Oak, with Moss
W. Whitman Portland Av.
English Runic
81 Clerman
Excerpt from Words
Fragments
Dithyrambic
Is Rougher than It was
Wooding at Night
I Know Well Enough
The Genuine Miracles of Christ
Med Cophósis
Summer Duck
What we Call Literature
Picture of the Most Flowing Grandeur of a Man
Priests!
In Metaphysical Points
Nehemiah Whitman
Silence
Living Pictures
Of this Broad and Majestic Universe
Poet of Materialism
Loveblows
Rules for Composition
Sculpture
Sweet Flag
Make No Quotations
Light and Air!
The Only Way
In the West
Most Poets Finish
Produce Great Persons
The Great Construction of the New Bible
(Of the Great Poet)
All through Writings
Make the Works
Drops of my Blood
Broadaxe
Mocking All the Textbooks
As of Forms
Others May Praise What they Like
Poem of Materials
Notes
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE