I'm Not Kidding Anymore

"Well it's 1969 okay/ All across the USA/ another year for me and you/ another year with nothing to do"- The Stooges

"I got a six-pack and nothing to do"-Black Flag

"The problem of leisure/ What to do for pleasure" - Gang of Four

Whitman is THE proto-punk. The first god damned one. I promise you this. We've seen it before. Dressing like a Bowery B'hoy, jaunty hat and a "i don't give two shits" hand on hip attitude. Not to mention he printed the first copies of Leaves of Grass by himself. Have you heard of a zine? Walt DIY'ed before DIY'ing was cool. The quotes above? Oh yeah....LOAFING. Three punk bands, and three bands full of loafers. Starting to get the picture?

How bout some text? Yes?

The poet "is the arbiter of the diverse and he is the key. He is the equalizer of his age and land" (v)

The poet. The punk. When capitalism was rampant in the age of Reagan we get this gem from Black Flag:

"This fucking city / Is run by pigs /They take the rights away /From all the kids /Understand/ We're fighting a war we can't win /They hate us-we hate them /We can't win-no way"

Black Flag is complaining about the status quo at one of the times that the status quo was strongest (except for now). Not to mention the big problems that were happening with the L.A.P.D. all throughout the eighties and ninties. Black Flag is equalizing the land. They are telling the youth of the troubles of their society and of unequality. Sure there is youthful zeal and sure this may be a stretch but....you can see it right?

But here is Walt showing us his even more punk like aspects:
"If the time becomes slothful and heavy he knows how to arouse it...he can make every word he speaks draw blood. Whatever stagnates in the flat of custom or obedience or legislation he never stagnates."(v)

Hell ya! Punks make their words draw blood, especially in times slothful. When change is the least, when things have become comfortable and terrifyingly so. Here are two examples of punk bands make their words draw blood.

"what they did,past or present/got us in this situation/predicament/no where to run/everybody's building bombs/no more housewives;/"days of our lives",/television,disneyland,/basketball or stars and stripes/their chairman's on his death bed/our president's popularity is down/an epileptic called a colonel/presses a button/and its all knocked down"-Circle Jerks

At this point and time (1982) the cold war had been going on for almost thirty years. Our Government had gotten out of certain crises but Reagen only helped propel the Cold War until he "won". Basically, this little band was stirring it up, being political, and showing the youth was was going on in the country. Booyah.

I know by know you are pissed as shit at me thinking "what does the Misfits wanting my skull have to do with Walt Whitman?!?" well it does. Walt was lauded as a crude and vulgar poet by some reviewers and he had done things no poet had done. He experimented with the new verse. He had the guitar riffs crunch and barbaric that where the words from his voice. He changed the shape of poetry and made new ways of making poetry available to furture generations. Likeso with punk. The amount of amateur but glorious guitars, brutal riffs and care-free attitude allowed many young bands to "sound [their] barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world" (not to mention many of the musicians in these bands were self taught).

These punk kids tried to change the world. Their attitude was one of not backing down, not giving in to conformity. Walt didn't either. He revised his Leaves sure, but he never gave in, never took out the profane because of peoples anger. He was himself through the poetry, loving, changing and not afraid of his own ideas. This makes me think of a line from a Refused song:

"It could be dangerous/ Art as a real threat"

The bottom line of this is that Walt was revolutionary and we need to understand that to understand his poetry. Contemporary times have jaded us from seeing just how crazy of a game Walt was playing, one as crazy as these punks. Walt tells us in his poem he harbors a slave. Walt tells us that "he most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher"(40). Walt was for America herself, even for the President, but also against establishments that would prevent humans from being alive, being human.

Despite his intent, which is a thing unknowable, he had somewhat of a pervasive poetry. The poetry of a rebel, a loafer, a rebel loafer, who dared to dream that we could all be humans together.

I wont lie to you, i am not done with this, i will bring about Punk into Whitman every god damned chance i can because i think the movement of Punk and the poetry of Whitman are combined in a way so thoroughly American that i can hardly stand it. Maybe it is the aspect of America that so brings together these things. Or maybe it was Walt who indeed started it all. We will see. Maybe i will change the song i am singing, but if i do, i still wont back down.