Whoever you are holding me now in hand
The phrase “sign himself a candidate for my affections” opens many fields of meaning. “Signing” can connote legal proceedings, such as sworn testimony; it may be a symbol for writing (the reader as future writer or as co-creator of this poem); it may also evoke secret societies, cults, or erotic signaling. Signing as a candidate sounds like running for office, highlighting the civic, democratic side of the Calamus poems, and yet signing as a candidate for Whitman’s affections also sounds like a private, erotic affair.
In the third stanza Whitman turns to religious imagery, with words like “way,” “God,” and “novitiate,” and phrases that evoke the Bible. He echoes the Old Testament God’s many demands to be the exclusive God of the Israelites, as well as Jesus’ harsh demand: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” A novitiate is a probationary membership in a religious community, and the Latin root, novicius, was used for newly-imported slaves; it is an unusual choice of words for the anti-clerical, anti-authoritarian poet.
If one reads this poem in isolation, Whitman sounds almost like the leader of a secret cult, exacting slavish, erotic devotion from his followers. We know from other poems and notebooks that he toyed with the notion of himself as a god. But in reality, while he liked to surround himself with young men and, later in life, literary acolytes, he was not a megalomaniac or a tyrant; he was a mild-mannered, temperate, easy-going man, affectionate and encouraging, and not particularly jealous or demanding. For all his talk about the identity between life and poetic work, one feels that, in this poem especially, he is trying on a mask, experimenting with a dark persona.
In the fourth and fifth stanzas, Whitman switches keys again – this time to the erotic. He maintains the ambiguity as to whether the “I” is the poem, book, or person of the poet. Even if it is a book, it is not one for libraries – there he lies as if dumb, unborn, or dead. The word “lies” means that he lies inert but also that he tells falsehoods if he is read as mere literature, as a “library” book.
Whitman is imperious but also receptive and passive. He does not steal, force, or demand a kiss; he simply permits it; as he allows the reader-lover to thrust the book-poet beneath his clothing, so that Whitman can feel the throbs of his heart. “Holding me now in hand” means more than holding hands; it means thrusting Whitman’s hand, or other body parts, beneath one’s clothes. Yet for all the dynamic sexuality of the thrusting and throbs, the stanza ends in a surprising quietness: the poet does not want unbridled eroticism after all: mere touching is best; moreover, the touching will take place in silent sleep and eternal rest – which sounds like death. This sleep may be the calm that follows the erotic storm, or it may be a calm that Whitman prefers to sex.
As instructions for how to read Leaves of Grass, these stanzas are remarkable. This is not a book to pluck off a library shelf and read like a diverting novel or educational text. This is a book with which you must establish an intimate, loving relationship. You must take the initiative and thrust it beneath your clothes and carry it with you wherever you go, your whole life; you must put the book in touch with your heart, soul, and erotic urges in order to activate it; but once you are fully in touch with it (which means with him, Walt Whitman), the rest is up to you; the book-poet falls asleep; you are the one now fully awake, ready to chart your own path.
In a broader reading of the poem, Whitman is joining the many prophets and mystics who have written beautiful words about the inadequacy of words to convey the truth – what he had called, in the previous poem, the “real reality.” The very act of trying to “grasp” Whitman, to hold him firmly in the palm of your hand and con his leaves, ensures that he, like Proteus, will change shape and elude you. “Con” in Whitman’s time did not mean to swindle; it meant to commit to memory; study or examine closely; or direct the steering of (as in another Calamus poem, “What ship, puzzled at sea, cons for the true reckoning”). Whitman wanted to found a new American religion, but one without dogma or priests. His adherents were not to memorize his words and re-enact his life; rather, they were to draw from his words the power to find their own truths. If you are not capable of reading him with this degree of independence, you are likely to be harmed more than helped. The more you con, study and memorize, the more you compromise your autonomy; hence, you are better off departing on your own way.
The phrase “sign himself a candidate for my affections” opens many fields of meaning. “Signing” can connote legal proceedings, such as sworn testimony; it may be a symbol for writing (the reader as future writer or as co-creator of this poem); it may also evoke secret societies, cults, or erotic signaling. Signing as a candidate sounds like running for office, highlighting the civic, democratic side of the Calamus poems, and yet signing as a candidate for Whitman’s affections also sounds like a private, erotic affair.
In the third stanza Whitman turns to religious imagery, with words like “way,” “God,” and “novitiate,” and phrases that evoke the Bible. He echoes the Old Testament God’s many demands to be the exclusive God of the Israelites, as well as Jesus’ harsh demand: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” A novitiate is a probationary membership in a religious community, and the Latin root, novicius, was used for newly-imported slaves; it is an unusual choice of words for the anti-clerical, anti-authoritarian poet.
If one reads this poem in isolation, Whitman sounds almost like the leader of a secret cult, exacting slavish, erotic devotion from his followers. We know from other poems and notebooks that he toyed with the notion of himself as a god. But in reality, while he liked to surround himself with young men and, later in life, literary acolytes, he was not a megalomaniac or a tyrant; he was a mild-mannered, temperate, easy-going man, affectionate and encouraging, and not particularly jealous or demanding. For all his talk about the identity between life and poetic work, one feels that, in this poem especially, he is trying on a mask, experimenting with a dark persona.
In the fourth and fifth stanzas, Whitman switches keys again – this time to the erotic. He maintains the ambiguity as to whether the “I” is the poem, book, or person of the poet. Even if it is a book, it is not one for libraries – there he lies as if dumb, unborn, or dead. The word “lies” means that he lies inert but also that he tells falsehoods if he is read as mere literature, as a “library” book.
Whitman is imperious but also receptive and passive. He does not steal, force, or demand a kiss; he simply permits it; as he allows the reader-lover to thrust the book-poet beneath his clothing, so that Whitman can feel the throbs of his heart. “Holding me now in hand” means more than holding hands; it means thrusting Whitman’s hand, or other body parts, beneath one’s clothes. Yet for all the dynamic sexuality of the thrusting and throbs, the stanza ends in a surprising quietness: the poet does not want unbridled eroticism after all: mere touching is best; moreover, the touching will take place in silent sleep and eternal rest – which sounds like death. This sleep may be the calm that follows the erotic storm, or it may be a calm that Whitman prefers to sex.
As instructions for how to read Leaves of Grass, these stanzas are remarkable. This is not a book to pluck off a library shelf and read like a diverting novel or educational text. This is a book with which you must establish an intimate, loving relationship. You must take the initiative and thrust it beneath your clothes and carry it with you wherever you go, your whole life; you must put the book in touch with your heart, soul, and erotic urges in order to activate it; but once you are fully in touch with it (which means with him, Walt Whitman), the rest is up to you; the book-poet falls asleep; you are the one now fully awake, ready to chart your own path.
In a broader reading of the poem, Whitman is joining the many prophets and mystics who have written beautiful words about the inadequacy of words to convey the truth – what he had called, in the previous poem, the “real reality.” The very act of trying to “grasp” Whitman, to hold him firmly in the palm of your hand and con his leaves, ensures that he, like Proteus, will change shape and elude you. “Con” in Whitman’s time did not mean to swindle; it meant to commit to memory; study or examine closely; or direct the steering of (as in another Calamus poem, “What ship, puzzled at sea, cons for the true reckoning”). Whitman wanted to found a new American religion, but one without dogma or priests. His adherents were not to memorize his words and re-enact his life; rather, they were to draw from his words the power to find their own truths. If you are not capable of reading him with this degree of independence, you are likely to be harmed more than helped. The more you con, study and memorize, the more you compromise your autonomy; hence, you are better off departing on your own way.