Behold the day-break!I awaken you by sitting on your chest and purring in your face,I stir you with muscular paw-prods, I rouse you with toe-bites,Walt, you have slept enough, why don’t you get up?”(From Meow...

Poets to ComePOETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for;But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known,Arouse! Arousefor you must...

You can never know where I am or what I am,But I am good company to you nonetheless,And really do regret I broke your inkwell.”(From Meow of Myself, from LEAVES OF CATNIP)

They do not sweat and whine about their condition, they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, they do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, not one...

The noisy jay swoops by and reviles me, he complains of my meow and my malingering.I too am not a bit subdued, I too am uncontrollable,I sound my splenetic yowl over the roof of the...

One’s-Self I Sing One’s-self I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. Of physiology from top to toe I sing, Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for...

Too many poets act like a middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat, and potatoes with drippings (tears). I don’t give a damn whether they eat or not. Forced...

To the bankrupt poet, to the jilted lover, to anyone who yearns to elude the doubt within and the din without, the tidal strait between Manhattan Island and her favorite suburb offers the specious illusion...

No you don’t”, she answers, and she is right. She can see it in my face- I understand now that I can’t be her and she can’t be me. Maybe Whitman had a gift I...

That poem is so damned long. You’d think old Walt could have taken a line or two to tell us how to unscrew the door from its jamb.

The Open Road goes to the used-car lot.

Pleasured equallyIn seeking as in finding,Each detail minding,Old Walt went seekingAnd finding.

What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there...

I situate myself, and seat myself,And where you recline I shall recline,For every armchair belonging to you as good as belongs to me.I loaf and curl up my tailI yawn and loaf at my ease...

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least, Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.