Yawp

"No author's life in the nineteenth century was more continuously photographed than Whitman's."
- Ed Folsom, "'This Heart's Geography': The Photographs of Walt Whitman" 

That Whitman was fascinated by photographs of himself isn't surprising, given his interest in trying to depict, understand, and catalog the self - and his fascination with all things Walt. But, the photographs in The Walt Whitman Archive that stood out to me most (besides the ones of Walt in his birthday suit!), were the few that showed the poet with another person. 


This photo of Walt with his friend, Peter Doyle, is the earliest photo of Walt with anyone else. 

Looking at it reminds me that much of "Song of Myself" is about this kind of moment, trying to understand the experience of being an "I" looking at a "you." And, it reminds me that, wondrously, the great poet was just an ordinary man.


I get that same feeling looking at the archived images of his manuscripts...