Starting from Paumanok
Walt Whitman
STARTING from fish-shape Paumanok, where I was born,
Well-begotten, and rais’d by a perfect mother;
After roaming many lands—lover of populous pavements;
Dweller in Mannahatta, my city—or on southern savannas;
Or a soldier camp’d, or carrying my knapsack and gun—or a miner in California;
Or rude in my home in Dakota’s woods, my diet meat, my drink from the spring;
Or withdrawn to muse and meditate in some deep recess,
Far from the clank of crowds, intervals passing, rapt and happy;
Aware of the fresh free giver, the flowing Missouri—aware of mighty Niagara;
Aware of the buffalo herds, grazing the plains—the hirsute and strong-breasted bull;
Of earth, rocks, Fifth-month flowers, experienced—stars, rain, snow, my amaze;
Having studied the mocking-bird’s tones, and the mountainhawk’s,
And heard at dusk the unrival’d one, the hermit thrush from the swamp-cedars,
Solitary, singing in the West, I strike up for a New World.
My Dad likes this poem by Walt Whitman because it is a big rambling journey around North America, with interesting-sounding landscapes and exotic place names. All the lines are really packed with details that create clear images in your head. When my Dad was an Art student he pictured the landscapes from the poem in his head to give him ideas for his next paintings. The poem is very long so this is just the opening. You can read the whole poem via this link.