Whitman’s well-known verse, an early section of his “Leaves of Grass”, “is such an inclusive image of what America is,” Scollon says, adding, “To me it was important to hear that aloud.” “After the election, it just felt like the triumph of ugliness,” Scollon says.

Scollon, poet and professor at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City, says the Traverse City reading was both well received and necessary, and expects the same for the Petoskey event. We need wisdom like his now, and I’m happy to give voice to the words he left for those of us who are listening,” McCullough adds. “His eyes were open to the America of his day. “Whitman loved the American ideal, and celebrated not only the individual experience, but diversity and equity as well,” he says.

James McCullough, professor of English at North Central Michigan College is among local writers participating in the reading, and believes Whitman’s poetry is appropriate at this historical moment. “In many ways it reminds us of the special obligations of citizenship in a free nation, how we are all in this together, whatever our differences,” he explains.

“Song of Myself” is a long poem – 52 cantos, like weeks of the year – and the more voices pitching in, the better, Lynch believes. But Whitman calls us out of our corners, out of our echo chambers and into a community, a sort of chorus made of individual voices that wants to advance the causes all Americans share.” “It felt like real medicine, to speak Whitman’s American epic into the air,” he says, adding, “We can’t fix our broken politics overnight, or the many institutions that suffer real divisions among well-meaning people.

Walt whitman o me