terça-feira, 1 de novembro de 2016

something from Leaves Of Grass

Walt Whitman (31 de maio de 1819 - 26 de março de 1892) foi um poetaensaísta e jornalista norte-americano, considerado por muitos como o "pai do verso livre". 

Considerado como o grande poeta da Revolução americana.

Fernando Pessoa, profundamente influenciado e inspirado por Whitman, escreveu um poema de nome "Saudação a Walt Whitman".
"Introduziu uma nova subjectividade na concepção poética e fez da sua poesia um hino à vida. A técnica inovadora dos seus poemas, nos quais a ideia de totalidade se traduziu no verso livre, influenciou não apenas a literatura americana posterior, mas todo o lirismo moderno."

three poems from Leaves Of Grass

***

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.


***

And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to 

try to alarm me.



To his work without flinching the accoucheur comes,
I see the elder-hand pressing receiving supporting,
I recline by the sills of the exquisite flexible doors,
And mark the outlet, and mark the relief and escape.



And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does 

not offend me,
I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing,
I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polish'd breasts of melons.



And as to you Life I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths,
(No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)



I hear you whispering there O stars of heaven,
O suns—O grass of graves—O perpetual transfers and pro-

motions,
If you do not say any thing how can I say any thing?



Of the turbid pool that lies in the autumn forest,
Of the moon that descends the steeps of the soughing twilight,
Toss, sparkles of day and dusk—toss on the black stems that 

decay in the muck,
Toss to the moaning gibberish of the dry limbs.



I ascend from the moon, I ascend from the night,
I perceive that the ghastly glimmer is noonday sunbeams reflected,
And debouch to the steady and central from the offspring great or 

small.

***

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear; 
    

Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;     

The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,     
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;     
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or washing—Each    singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day—At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.