Well, I've got sharply divided feelings about Whitman. For a period in high school, he was a revelation and my yearbook quotation is from "Song of the Open Road." As time passed, the excesses and the misses became more grating, and I also started to resent the use of his legacy as a way to demean much of the poetry I still love. Of course, for this last charge the man was long dead, so I can't blame him personally...Still, for all the cheap shots I've taken at Whitman and my view that 80% of the work is dreck, he has his moments when he rises to greatness. Since I'm off the formalist resevation a little bit already anyway, I'll also fess up that Creeley has a similar role in my pantheon.
Except for a little bit of "Howl" I still can't stomach Ginsberg, though, even though he may be the most direct descendant of Whitman.
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