Verse 15

Let's do this together

Dear friends, trusty Whitman, Alabama followers, newbies and fellow human beings, These days we’re all trying to be safe, to navigate the new Covid-19 reality, and to find intimacy from a distance. Whitman, Alabama is about connection and finding ways to bring many voices together. In this project, you’ll find a kaleidoscope of southern voices joined with Walt Whitman’s -- a Yankee and one of our greatest poets. In search of new ways to bring Americans together during these fractured times, we invite you to join us. Would you like to be a part of this Emmy®-nominated project? Grab your camera and show us a bit of your lives while reciting a few lines from Verse 15 of Whitman’s Song of Myself. The poem is beautiful. It urges Americans to discover one another. Once we receive your videos, we'll weave them together, make the verse complete, and it will forever become part of Whitman, Alabama. Check out the verse and some filming tips and tricks below. And please share this invitation far and wide. We are not bound by any borders. We’ll be collecting contributions until May 31, 2020, Walt Whitman’s birthday! We’ll let you know of any changes to that date, and share updates on our progress, via Instagram and Twitter. Thanks everyone. We can’t wait to see what you send us! ~ The Whitman, Alabama Team

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What we want

  • Recite lines while doing whatever you want.
  • Be serious. Be funny. Be creative. Be you.
  • Show us your world.
  • Don’t worry about perfection. Leave the messy bits.
  • Feel free to recite the lines in a language other than English. You can find some translations here. Or, translate the lines yourself. Sign language would also work well.

Advice on picking and reciting the lines

  • You can upload 1-3 files. Only one needs to be of you reciting. 
  • Choose a section or two of lines. You’ll see how we’ve created sections using bold in the verse text down below
  • Choose just a single line, any line. Here are some suggestions: 11, 18, 37, 39, 44, and 52.
  • Or, read the whole thing!
  • Extra credit goes to anyone who ALSO recites the last few lines of the poem, 61-66.
  • No need to sound like a poet. Just recite in the way that makes you feel you.
  • No need to memorize anything. If you can, cool.
  • Feel free to read from a page.
  • If you decide to read up close to a computer camera, position a browser window with the verse text right under the lens. You can read and look towards the camera at the same time!

Looking for ideas?

  • Invite your kids, parents, grandparents, friends, co-workers or strangers to recite with you. (Please maintain any appropriate physical/social distancing.)
  • Record lines during a Zoom conference, FaceTime or Skype call. 
  • Show us what you’re up to: recite while cooking dinner, doing yoga on your roof, changing a diaper, hang gliding, working. 
  • Are you still going to a work site? Show us that. 
  • Or, just put your face up close to a camera and keep it as simple as that.

Tech specs

  • Use the device you’re comfortable with:
    • cell phone camera 
    • iPad camera
    • laptop camera
    • the fancy camera you got for your birthday but never use. Now’s the time!
  • Make sure we can hear you.
  • If you know how, change camera settings to record the highest quality possible (HD, 4K, we’ll take it all!)

Want to know more?

  • Visit Whitman, Alabama. This is where the final video will live.
  • For more on Song of Myself by Walt Whitman, click here
  • For more on Verse 15 specifically, click here.

Above all else, remember...

Just have fun.

There is no right way to recite.

Anything you send us will be so appreciated.

We’ll do everything we can to make you feel proud of being a part of this.

**If you run into any issues, you should feel free to contact us at: [email protected].**


VERSE 15

1. The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,2. The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp,3. The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanks- giving dinner,4. The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,5. The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready,6. The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches,7. The deacons are ordain'd with cross'd hands at the altar,8. The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel,9. The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loafe and looks at the oats and rye,10. The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm'd case,11. (He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother's bed-room;)12. The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,13. He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the manu- script;14. The malform'd limbs are tied to the surgeon's table,15. What is removed drops horribly in a pail;16. The quadroon girl is sold at the auction-stand, the drunkard nods by the bar-room stove,17. The machinist rolls up his sleeves, the policeman travels his beat, the gate-keeper marks who pass,18. The young fellow drives the express-wagon, (I love him, though I do not know him;)19. The half-breed straps on his light boots to compete in the race,20. The western turkey-shooting draws old and young, some lean on their rifles, some sit on logs,21. Out from the crowd steps the marksman, takes his position, levels his piece;22. The groups of newly-come immigrants cover the wharf or levee,23. As the woolly-pates hoe in the sugar-field, the overseer views them from his saddle,24. The bugle calls in the ball-room, the gentlemen run for their part- ners, the dancers bow to each other,25. The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof'd garret and harks to the musical rain,26. The Wolverine sets traps on the creek that helps fill the Huron,27. The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemm'd cloth is offering moccasins and bead-bags for sale,28. The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with half-shut eyes bent sideways,29. As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat the plank is thrown for the shore-going passengers,30. The young sister holds out the skein while the elder sister winds it off in a ball, and stops now and then for the knots,31. The one-year wife is recovering and happy having a week ago borne her first child,32. The clean-hair'd Yankee girl works with her sewing-machine or in the factory or mill,33. The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer, the reporter's lead flies swiftly over the note-book, the sign-painter is lettering with blue and gold,34. The canal boy trots on the tow-path, the book-keeper counts at his desk, the shoemaker waxes his thread,35. The conductor beats time for the band and all the performers follow him,36. The child is baptized, the convert is making his first professions,37. The regatta is spread on the bay, the race is begun, (how the white sails sparkle!)38. The drover watching his drove sings out to them that would stray,39. The pedler sweats with his pack on his back, (the purchaser hig- gling about the odd cent;)40. The bride unrumples her white dress, the minute-hand of the clock moves slowly,41. The opium-eater reclines with rigid head and just-open'd lips,42. The prostitute draggles her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and pimpled neck,43. The crowd laugh at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to each other,44. (Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you;)45. The President holding a cabinet council is surrounded by the great Secretaries,46. On the piazza walk three matrons stately and friendly with twined arms,47. The crew of the fish-smack pack repeated layers of halibut in the hold,48. The Missourian crosses the plains toting his wares and his cattle,49. As the fare-collector goes through the train he gives notice by the jingling of loose change,50. The floor-men are laying the floor, the tinners are tinning the roof, the masons are calling for mortar,51. In single file each shouldering his hod pass onward the laborers;52. Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gather'd, it is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes of cannon and small arms!)53. Seasons pursuing each other the plougher ploughs, the mower mows, and the winter-grain falls in the ground;54. Off on the lakes the pike-fisher watches and waits by the hole in the frozen surface,55. The stumps stand thick round the clearing, the squatter strikes deep with his axe,56. Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton-wood or pecan-trees,57. Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river or through those drain'd by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansas,58. Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooche or Altamahaw,59. Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grand- sons around them,60. In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after their day's sport,61. The city sleeps and the country sleeps,62. The living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time,63. The old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife;64. And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,65. And such as it is to be of these more or less I am,66. And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.


Additional Reading


More Verses

"I celebrate myself, and sing myself,And what I assume you shall assume,For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."

WALT WHITMAN, "SONG OF MYSELF"

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