That's Me in the Corner, That's Me in the Spotlight

When I first encountered Walt Whitman it was in a warehouse among rows of crowded used books packed tightly in the shelves and stacked up in small towers scattered among the rows. The shelves were so close that if two people stood back to back they would have only half an inch between them. While I was searching the shelves for familiar authors Leaves of Grass peeked out at me among the books and, partly out of my sheer giddiness at finding a place that sells thousands of books for only a dollar each, I added it to the other 14 books I had picked out with a similar blithe attitude. Three weeks later I picked up Leaves of Grass and opened it to the first poem. Immediately disenchanted by the first few lines I placed the old, well-worn book back on my shelf, deciding in that moment that Whitman just wasn't for me.
This would be one of the worst decisions of my literary life. Yet now I stand with Ezra Pound, shuffling feet and lowered head, to say "I have detested you long enough" ("A Pact"). By the time I had reached the last poem of our textbook reading, I suddenly felt I must love him. The nuances in his vocabulary and the unapologetic frankness of his topics, accompanied by wit and vivid emotion, are executed so flawlessly I am almost ashamed to admit I ever disliked him and, while Pound may continue to hold onto his distaste, I freely let mine crash to the ground.
One of Whitman's shorter poems, "A Glimpse," was a major factor in my change of heart. Opening with the simple line, "A glimpse through an interstice caught," my first thought was 'what in the world is an interstice?' Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an interstice as a gap or break between closely spaced or normally continuous things, and with the use of this seemingly haughty and necessary word Whitman begins his craft. For, as the poem progresses, it is evident that while we look through this interstice we observe a sort of social interstice. Here is a bar-room filled with "workmen and drivers," the rougher sorts of people to be viewed as overtly masculine, and then there, "unremark'd seated in a corner," is our gentle speaker and his companion. Due to the content of Whitman's earlier poems it is safe to assume that our speaker is a man, though the speaker's gender is never stated in the poem. So then in line four, where Whitman pens a seamless return to the interactions of the rougher men as a contrast, the last words he uses are interesting. I almost feel as if I am reading too much into the context surrounding the poem and the double meaning of the word "oath" yet, if part of poetry is intentional vocabulary, it is worth delving into my theory.
After the first reading of this poem, the word "oath" appears to be solely referring to the strong, manly men occupying the bar-room, and the definition would then be "a rude or offensive word." Yet this word has a second meaning that could also reflect on our pair; a formal and serious promise. The second word at the end of line four is "smutty," meaning obscene or indecent. While this single definition may cause you to wonder if it has any double meaning at all, I ask you to look closer at the context in which it is written. Homosexual acts between men were punishable by death, imprisonment, or commitment to an asylum, at best, until the 1960's.[1][2] As this poem was published a hundred years before then it is clear that the quiet couple in our poem would not have been viewed with the same sullen or, more recently, congratulatory, and ultimately harmless, attitude we would view them with today. In the time period this poem was composed the relationship between the speaker and boy would seem an inappropriate and offensive affair and could potentially have them murdered or put in jail. In that time period people would claim that their formal and serious promise to stand side by side, hand in hand, as long as they are able, is an indecent joke. The word love would be a rude and offensive word from their lips to any who heard. It is through these unobtrusive and easily missed contrasts, showing a true mastery of language, that I fell in love with a poet I had first dismissed.

(Title is a quote from this song.)