What Think You I Take my Pen in Hand?
Walt Whitman
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
LibriVox volunteers bring you 15 different recordings of What think you I take my pen in hand? by Walt Whitman. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of April 29th, 2007. (0 hr 14 min)
Chapters
Reviews
This was easy to listen to.
SQ
The reason for my giving such a high score is more to do with the author's place in American poetry than my actual like for what he writes. I wish he had better content or at least took to editing (just the smallest amount would be well appreciated), but no: the poet seemed quite intent on glorifying the most mundane things. I can definitely sympathize with the author's special eloquence (always clothed in a self justifying disposition). The imagery is vivid and events are portrayed with something nostalgic (it is clear when we are reminiscing if we tend to paint pictures with a little bit to much detail; I'm sure the most of us do not reflect upon our every muscle's twitch while we baptize our biscuit in our morning coffee each day). Putting that aside, this is what poetry does, but I don't think everything is deserving of this kind of treatment. However, Walt Whitman had high regards for the concept of friendship and I do think that that may rightly be immortalized in such verses as his.