“Song of Myself”

 

I chose the video based on verse 26 because it reminds me about very important thing in our life as is listening. Nowadays, we always in a rush, always busy and always on a run. That is why we tend to forget about simply thing as listening. Listening to others and listening to our own inner voice.  

The video that I chose is the part of the interesting experiment that was conducted in Alabama. For 2 years, filmmaker Jennifer Grandall went throughout the Southern state, inviting people to look into a camera and share a part of their lives through the words of Whitman.  The document presents ordinary people in their usual surroundings such as at their houses, at their jobs or in their favourite spots that they feel most comfortable.  

Verse 26 was read by Tim who hosts the program called “Swap Shop on WCRL Classic Hits 95.3 in Oneonta”. People call and say they need this or that or ask of certain services. In this case, Tim read the verse 26 live, alongside with the conversation he has with his callers.  

As the filmmaker points out in fact there is a lot texture in all these calls. Things like people’s voices, sounds of the quality of the phone line they were using as well as in the type of the skills they have it or the things they want to sell or buy. All of these things certainly connect to the words of Whitman. As Tim listens to all those people in the same way Whitman hears the surrounding. 

In the verse 26, Whitman writes… 

Now I will do nothing but listen, 

To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it.  

I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames, clack of sticks cooking my meals,  

I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice, 

I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following, 

Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night,  

Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh of work-people at their meals,  

The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the sick, 

The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncing a death-sentence,  

The heave’e’yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, the refrain of the anchor-lifters,  

The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift-streak- 
         ing engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and color’d lights,  

The steam-whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching cars, 

The slow march play’d at the head of the association marching two and two,  

(They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.)  

I hear the violoncello, (’tis the young man’s heart’s complaint,) 

I hear the key’d cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears, 

It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast. 

I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera, 

Ah this indeed is music—this suits me. 

A tenor large and fresh as the creation fills me, 

The orbic flex of his mouth is pouring and filling me full. 

I hear the train’d soprano (what work with hers is this?) 

The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies, 

It wrenches such ardors from me I did not know I possess’d them,  

It sails me, I dab with bare feet, they are lick’d by the indolent waves,  

I am cut by bitter and angry hail, I lose my breath, 

Steep’d amid honey’d morphine, my windpipe throttled in fakes of death,  

At length let up again to feel the puzzle of puzzles, 

And that we call Being. 

 

In this section Whitman stops to fully absorb what he hears around him. Things such as sounds of voices, city or the fire. Moreover, everything blends together as he said “all sounds running together”. 

By the end, he compares it to experience of hearing a “grand opera”. He deeply feels it.