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On Walt Whitman & Making Hopeful Art at a Time Like This

42 min • 31 mars 2025

I’m thinking of someone. Guess who? They’re a trailblazing artist. LGBTQ-adjacent. A Gemini from Long Island. An artist trying to make sense of rapid technological change and political division. No, not Lady Gaga. Not RuPaul. Not Frank Ocean. Think older. Centuries older. Today we’re talking about the great American poet, Walt Whitman.

Walt Whitman was born in 1819, but his world feels eerily familiar. His New York was reeling from technological change and caught in a web of political division. Sound familiar? In this episode, we explore Whitman’s life—from his roots as a Brooklyn typesetter to his rise as the great American poet. We’ll unpack his most famous work, Leaves of Grass, and the ideas in it that scandalized entire towns. We’ll talk about the beauty of contradiction, the divinity of the mundane, and the radical interconnectedness of all things. We’ll ask: what does it mean to write about hope and unity at a Time Like This? If you’re questioning how your art (or your heart) fits into a collapsing society, this episode is for you.

EPISODE OUTLINE

00:00 Intro

02:56 Life Update: Tour! USA Today Bestseller! Bali?

05:32 Walt Whitman: a Long Island Gemini

06:03 1800s NY: Nationalism, populism, manifest destiny

07:52 Sound familiar?

09:02 Walt Whitman’s early life

10:11 Walt Whitman, the reluctant teacher

11:05 Walt Whitman, the starving artist

12:27 Walt Whitman does a social media detox

13:00 Walt Whitman emerges with a first draft

13:14 Leaves of Grass: not like other girls