My Favorite Poem

To all of you reading this, "Salut au Monde" probably does not mean anything. Please allow me to unpack the various meanings of this compact phrase. French people say "Salut" as we say "hi" and "bye." It is a bit less formal than "Bonjour." "Au Monde" means "to the world," so the translation of the title is basically "Hello World" or "Hello to the World."

However, "salute" also means "salute" a bit more formal or official than a mere "hi." A salute implicates a recognition of another in a sense that a "hi" cannot. In writing this piece, to my audience in honor of Walt Whitman I acknowledge your importance in my life as well as my desire to stay connected to all of you while we are all separated from one another.

My favorite poem by Walt Whitman is “Salute Au Monde”, if you could not tell by now, and is one of Whitman’s most successful compositions in his career and is his calling card to the world. This poem was first published as the third poem in the 1856 version of Leaves of Grass and was originally titled “Poem of Salutation”. This poem struck me as soon as I started reading it because it relates to society so much today as well as it did in the 1800’s. When I read this poem for the first time, I could feel a sense of Americanism in myself that I had never felt before and its Whitman’s ability to create an imagined world in his words that makes this feeling so definitive.

The first time I heard Walt Whitman’s “Salute Au Monde” was shortly after completing an author class about Whitman my Sophomore year of college. This class plunged me into a world of poetry that I had never been introduced to before. I had never heard of free verse poetry as it still is not as popular as the traditional forms, we see every day on the internet and social media. Whitman was immediately unique to me in so many ways like his ability to be poetic without rhyme which was something I never really knew was a real way to write poetry. Or how he went against almost all of societies rules regarding sexuality, race, religion you name it, and he was probably appealing to the humane side of what the issue at hand was.

Personally, I am someone who shares the same views Whitman in the sense that I do not care who you are, what race you are, what religion you believe in or what region you are from I will respect you as you respect me as a person. Walt Whitman embodies this through so many of his works and I think that “Salute Au Monde” really put this part of Whitman in perspective for me.

Whitman was such an interesting person aside from poetry as well and writing in general. He was a nurse in the civil war and turned his diary into a published set of poems in the same “Leaves of Grass” as “Salute Au Monde”. Whitman wrote personal correspondence with President Lincoln about his works as Lincoln was a supposed fan of his. One of the most infamous presidents of our country’s history in a time period that reprimanded Whitman for his views, was a fan. This was a huge eye opener for me as well as you can see the ideologies between the two matches as two progressive and forward-thinking men in our history.

Nevertheless, back to the poem.

I was scrolling through “Leaves of Grass” one day and came across this poem that absolutely captivated me, “Salute Au Monde”. When I finished it, I had to read it twice more to actually get a real sense of what he was trying to accomplish or at least in my mind what he was trying to accomplish with the poem. I saw this poem as a piece that perfectly encapsulates Whitman’s works altogether.

It is important to know the times in which “Salute Au Monde” was written in to truly comprehend how ahead of his time Walt Whitman was by essentially advocating for world peace through “Salute Au Monde”. This poem was published in the pre-civil war era in 1860 with even earlier versions published as early as 1856. This means Whitman had been developing these ideas for some time before eventually finalizing it in 1860. This part always impresses me the most about old writers but specifically Whitman because he was just 100% himself 100% of the time and wrote exactly what he felt rather than how society felt about the things he wrote about.

If you could not tell I have a strong admiration for the man.

The reason the time period of the piece plays such a significant role is because the world was so divided at this point in history. America was on the brink of its civil war with the racially charged south and the middle east has always been divided while numerous wars were being fought in Europe as well.

It seemed as though the world and if not the world at the very least America, Whitman’s home, was in its most blood thirsty time period.

I love it because even though the turmoil is high as can be Whitman pops out to say,

“hold on, we are all equal and have a right to be here together no matter your race gender or societal class”.

This is a very bold and brave thing to do in these hard times to be different from the majority, but this was something as I read more, I came to see Whitman had no problem with. Whitman took a stand and truly embodies what it means to be a true American in the values that are sold to the public and what this country is supposed to be about on paper in “Salute Au Monde”.

This poem I feel is a lost piece of scripture for freedom that people must pay attention to or at least give a read once and a while to rekindle a sense of Americanism and pride in our country and ourselves. With today’s society with all the racially charged issues and rioting within the past year this poem was something I wanted to bring back to this class as it was the perfect opportunity to bring to light our nations dark history to story it from recurring today. The last thing I want to be a part of is a generation that after 160 years, still could not get it together.

If you have ever wondered, like I have, about what would happen if Whitman got ahold of Google Earth today, here is your poem. There are more places and proper nouns than an index of a book and the Whitmanic bear hug now encircles the globe as he salutes all earths inhabitants in this piece. A global pandemic certainly alters our 21st century brains understanding of that salutation Whitman had in mind so let me remind you for him. But just to throw this in there so does 150 years of American foreign policy, the history of which has been so opposite to what we see Whitman envision for our country in this poem.

I think within this poem Whitman addresses a few issues his generation faced as our generation faces now in our own way and that is how race and religion in the world and creates huge divides among us all. I think what Whitman wants to accomplish is to bring all different kinds of people together through his writing.

Heading section one, Whitman says, “What widens within you Walt Whitman?” (Whitman 287). This question is directly answered all throughout section two with references to many different countries and places in the world that seem to all connect with section one’s heading question quoted earlier. “Within me latitude widens, longitude lengthens, Asia, Africa, Europe, are to the East, America is provided for in the west, Banding the bulge of the earth winds the hot equator, curiously north and south turn the axis-ends” (Whitman 287). What I took from this quote is Whitman by using wide ranges of areas and gaps to show how divided all these places are in real life around the world something we see today as I mentioned before, and this is what made me think of race division in our world. He uses so many different people and places and I think by grouping them all together and giving no one a better or worse label, he gives them equality in attention. While using himself in the metaphor as well Whitman is saying a piece of him touches or is in each of these places around the world which he so often has to do in his writing because Whitman being Whitman always needs you to know he is there. Whitman continues to make this metaphor throughout section two, naming many other places that fit the metaphor.

A couple things came to mind when reading this part of the poem I thought of our capital being rushed by a bunch of angry white people who were mad about another old white guy getting voted into office. I personally think that if we gave each other the respect and approached each other with open minds rather than fear and hate then this piece would feel a bit more real rather than a fantasy world to me.

But as an American who loves their freedom and who observes the hate of the world sitting on my comfy couch not being directly affected by any racism or cultural hate, I can’t help but feel the need to step up and say something and I think this is how Walt Whitman felt in his society in the 1800’s. Today with all the hate we face I wish more people would just sit down and enjoy life like Whitman seemed to do and he just loved everyone and everything even the people who hated the most. I think that is the only way to kill hate is to just love it until it shrinks and dies out.

When I read into section three another question heads the section that brings religion into the conversation in “Salute Au Monde”. “What do you hear Walt Whitman?” (Whitman 288). The question then is followed by a series of alliteration of the phrase “I hear” at the beginning of each line of where he lists 18 sounds. Within the list of these 18 sounds I saw another interesting example of Whitman’s ability to bring cultural issues into play by referencing many kinds of religions by describing their sounds. “I hear the Arab muezzin calling from the top of the mosque, I hear the Christian priests at the Altars of their churches” (Whitman 288), “I hear the Hebrew reading his records and pslams” (Whitman 288), “I hear the Hindu teaching his favorite pupil the loves, wars, adages safely to this to from poets” (Whitman 289). These quotes from section three all to me show Whitman how accepts and embraces all these religions.

As an aspiring writer I find it so hard to bring in the issues surrounding me because I do not really personally feel affected by any going on around me. Sure, I hate what is going on and I would love for it to end but I have not had riots in my front yard, cops dragging me around or anything like that, so I have not been truly affected by anything going on in the world. I commend him to be able to do this in his time period where religion truly divided many people around the world especially in America where the transition of religious fear and racial fear was at an all-time mix of each other.

Whitman may not follow or believe all of them, but he does not discriminate against them. Whitman is grouping theses religions together because differences like religion should not divide and dictate our relations with one another. This is how Whitman so cunningly uses himself in this quote to bridge differences between people like religion by grouping them together in a poem. Religion is one of the world’s biggest reasons for division between different people and Whitman is putting himself right in the middle of it all.

Religion was always a huge question mark for me with why people get so upset over it. I get it that it’s been fought over for thousands of years but in the same breath ITS BEEN THOUSANDS OF YEARS!

To me religion was made up by very intelligent people to create moral boundaries for society and it being some of the earliest literature of humankind people have idolized it and ran with the very same themes and ideas about religion forever. I feel as a society we have gotten all we can from religion its nice to think about a place to go to when you die but that should be it. We know the difference between right and wrong and that if you do good more or less it comes back to you.