I like Whitman even when he's goofy and excessive and utterly full of himself. His refusal to sort and rank things is part of his power, part of his point: the multitudes he contains are all lovely and luscious. I can't help believing, at least while I'm reading him (especially aloud, very loud) that he accomplished what he set to do, which was to embody America, complete with its glory and its sordidness and all its inherent contradictions. Insofar as the American experience is one version of the larger human experience, he is universal.
Of course he inspired a lot of bad imitators, including lots of people who have never read him but only other imitators. Maybe the best way for a would-be poet to cope with Whitman is to reject him completely as a model.
Richard
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