Mary Oliver on Whitman

Thus Whitman's poems stood before me like a model 

of delivery when I began to write poems myself: 

I mean the oceanic power and rumble that travels through 

a Whitman poem-the incantatory syntax, the boundless

affirmation. In those years, truth was elusive--as was my

own faith that I could recognize and contain it. Whitman

kept me from the swamps of a worse uncertainty, and I

lived many hours within the lit circle of his certainty, and

his bravado. Unscrew the locks from the doors! Unscrew

the doors themselves from their jambs! And there was the

passion which he invested in the poems. The metaphysical

curiosity! The oracular tenderness with which he viewed

the world--its roughness, its differences, the stars, the

spider- nothing was outside the range of his interest. I

reveled in the specificity of his words. And his faith-that

kept my spirit buoyant surely, though his faith was with-

out a name that I ever heard of. Do you guess I have some

intricate purpose? Well I have ... for the April rain has,

and the mica on the side of a rock has.

But first and foremost, I learned from Whitman that

the poem is a temple--or a green field--a place to enter,

and in which to feel. Only in a secondary way is it an

intellectual thing—an artifact, a moment of seemly and

robust wordiness--wonderful as that part of it is. I

learned that the poem was made not just to exist, but

to speak--to be company. It was everything that was

needed, when everything was needed. I remember the

delicate, rumpled way into the woods, and the weight of

the books in my pack. I remember the rambling, and the

loafing--the wonderful days when, with Whitman, 

I tucked my trowser-ends in my boots and went and had

a good time.