Whitman wears his Levis well to inspire a new generation, the millenials, the “Os” (for Obama) generation: http://goforth.levi.com/newdeclaration/gallery
OR hear here:
Bypass the Levis site and its accompanying ad campaign by clicking the link above to hear Walt Whitman’s original 36-second wax cylinder recording of what is thought to be Whitman’s voice reading four lines from the poem “America.” For more information on this recording, see Ed Folsom, “The Whitman Recording,” Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, 9 (Spring 1992), 214-16. More information:
It’s actually a cool campaign and worth checking out. Anything that brings poetry to the masses, especially poetry by Whitman, is good by me.
Here’s the text of the poem: America By Walt Whitman 1819-1892
Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear’d, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
Chair’d in the adamant of Time.
And here’s Ellyn Maybe, an LA poet, “On Being an Artist”:
