Unstuck Poem Inspired by Whitman

I am excited to participate in Teachers Write virtual writing camp hosted by author Kate Messner. If you haven't heard about it, check it out! Join in!


Today's Quick Write is an exercise in getting unstuck. Out of the two options, I chose to grab a book to thumb through and let it spark a little writing. I'm still not sold on using an e-reader for everything, but I grabbed mine for this exercise. One of the first books I downloaded is Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. I opened it and went directly to my favorite part, a section that we dissected in our college American Literature class. 


Lines that stick with me...

• 'And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.'
• 'Growing among black folks as among white, Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.'
• 'Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.'
• 'I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.'

My 'Unstuck' Poem Inspired by Whitman's Leaves of Grass



'The hum of your valved voice' Whitman once wrote, 
'I loafe and invite my soul'...


And I do.


My head rests on your chest. 
I loaf.
I listen to your heart, your breathing, your deep voice.


I invite your soul. 
'I witness and wait'. 


Breathing in time with one another. 
Loafing and laying and waiting for the other
to make a move, 
to get up and start the day,
to begin the busy-ness of life,
but we don't. 


Enjoying the company of another, 
just being
not one, not the other, but both all at once.


'Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems.'


Enjoying nothingness which is everything.
Inviting the soul
'For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.'