{"id":1365,"date":"2009-04-14T22:22:06","date_gmt":"2009-04-15T05:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.candlelightstories.com\/?p=1365"},"modified":"2009-04-14T22:23:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-15T05:23:00","slug":"audio-poem-by-walt-whitman-i-sing-the-body-electric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/2009\/04\/14\/audio-poem-by-walt-whitman-i-sing-the-body-electric\/","title":{"rendered":"Audio Poem by Walt Whitman: I Sing the Body Electric"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1366\" title=\"471px-whitmaneakins\" src=\"\/\/www.candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/471px-whitmaneakins-235x300.jpg\" alt=\"471px-whitmaneakins\" width=\"235\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/471px-whitmaneakins-235x300.jpg 235w, https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/04\/471px-whitmaneakins.jpg 471w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 235px) 100vw, 235px\" \/><em>I Sing the Body Electric<\/em> is a poem that celebrates the life of the body and its equal status with the soul.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Walt_Whitman\"><em>Walt Whitman<\/em><\/a> is probably the greatest poet in the English language since <em>William Shakespeare<\/em>.\u00a0 Some might argue with this but there is no other poet who so muscularly tore the page to shreds with his wild, raging, soaring, lunatic language.\u00a0 I think Shakespeare would have liked and admired this man because it is only he who is a match for Shakespeare&#8217;s fearless destruction and rebuilding of language.\u00a0 I think that great poets always destroy before they create.\u00a0 To read Whitman&#8217;s massive lifelong work, <em>Leaves of Grass<\/em>, is to wake up and realize that poetry is like blood exploding through your body and spraying its meanings and music out all over the city.\u00a0 You cannot read Whitman and be the same as you were before reading him.\u00a0 He is a shock to the system.<\/p>\n<p>He lived from 1819 to 1892 and is often called the father of free verse.\u00a0 His discovery of the loose free form of poetry is an astounding development that is still being worked out.\u00a0 The problem for today is that Whitman still has the hardest punch and could do terrible damage to most poets alive and writing today.\u00a0 It would not be a fair fight.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the great <em>I Sing the Body Electric, <\/em>from Whitman&#8217;s <em>Leaves of Grass<\/em> book.<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"290\" height=\"24\" data=\"http:\/\/www.candlelightstories.com\/soundstoryblog\/player.swf?src=http:\/\/www.stoneagerobot.com\/SoundStories\/ISingTheBodyElectric.mp3\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\"><param name=\"id\" value=\"player\" \/><param name=\"align\" value=\"middle\" \/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"sameDomain\" \/><param name=\"quality\" value=\"high\" \/><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"transparent\" \/><param name=\"bgcolor\" value=\"#ffffff\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.candlelightstories.com\/soundstoryblog\/player.swf?src=http:\/\/www.stoneagerobot.com\/SoundStories\/ISingTheBodyElectric.mp3\" \/><param name=\"name\" value=\"player\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.stoneagerobot.com\/SoundStories\/ISingTheBodyElectric.mp3\">Download the MP3<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Remember to enter a poem in our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.candlelightstories.com\/2009\/04\/13\/a-little-poetry-contest\/\">Little Poetry Contest<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I Sing the Body Electric is a poem that celebrates the life of the body and its equal status with the soul.\u00a0 Walt Whitman is probably the greatest poet in the English language since William Shakespeare.\u00a0 Some might argue with this but there is no other poet who so muscularly tore the page to shreds [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88,148],"tags":[86,167,231],"class_list":["post-1365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcasts","category-poetry","tag-audio","tag-poem","tag-walt-whitman"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1365"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1372,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365\/revisions\/1372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}