Leaves of Grass

 

 

One can’t say too much about Leave of Grass, because it says so much about itself. 

Reading it again, now, as an adult, I’m struck by the feverish pace of the poem.  It hardly lets up; its speed is unrelenting. 

No idea is too profound or trivial to be thrown away.  So the poem loops and weaves its way into themes and topics grand and small. 

In the end, we don’t have a poem so much as a tapestry of American life filled with relentless, mystical, fleshy optimism and hope even in the face of the awful realities of life.

This book should not be read, but re-read.