The Kiss of Walt Whitman Still on My Lips (Squares & Rebels), the sixth book by deaf gay poet Raymond Luczak, takes its inspiration from a remark Oscar Wilde made after he and Whitman met more than 130 years ago. In the book, Luczak moves back and forth in time from the present day to Whitman's time, comparing the life of a gay poet then and now. Luczak, the author and editor of almost 20 books, most recently QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology, is a Pushcart Prize nominee.
Gregg Shapiro: Can you trace your awareness of Walt Whitman to being a gay man or a poet first?
Raymond Luczak: I wasn't truly aware of Walt Whitman until the mid-80s, when I was attending Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. When my friend Melainie and I were walking around the city one day, she said that Whitman had lived there during the Civil War, and how she really liked his poem "We Two Boys Together Clinging." She had seen a picture of the older Whitman and his boyfriend Peter Doyle, a streetcar conductor, and was impressed by how they looked directly at each other.
I don't remember which edition of Leaves of Grass I read for the first time, but after plodding through his lugubrious introduction, I was like, "Okay, I get it." Then I read his opening shot, "Song of Myself." I went, "Whoa!" The poet had conjured a vision of what America could be. Having read Allen Ginsberg's Howl, I saw how a poet could be directly influenced yet remain distinct from his predecessors. I'd never spotted that kind of transparent influence in a writer's work before, so that was a revelation.
More than a decade later, when I began to research developments in Western poetry for my book How to Kill Poetry, Whitman returned to my consciousness. In hindsight, he'd always been there, waiting for the right moment to reveal himself. Once he arrived, there was no turning him away. His shadow had finally crossed mine.
What are the challenges of writing a book-length poem?
I was in the throes of feeling an intense ache for a certain gardener. I didn't know whether I should write about him. When I reconnected with Whitman and researched his life prior to writing the poem "America's First Coming Out," I saw that he, too, was a man of earth. What changed everything was coming across a spectacular quote in a letter Wilde wrote to a gay friend after meeting the poet: "I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips." The prospect of such a startling title was like being given permission to write about my unrequited affections for the gardener, and for Whitman himself.
I'd never intended to write a book-length poem. I thought it could be a chapbook about learning from Whitman how to love again. But the more I learned about how Whitman lived as a gay man, the more he seeped into the heartbeat of my poem. What did it mean to love back then? What about now? I wanted to learn how he could seem to love so extravagantly in a more repressed time.
What's so fascinating about Whitman is how much of a harbinger he was of not only the American identity, but also of other identities. I believe he is the first American poet to delineate clearly what being an American meant; no more aping the Brits. When he self-published the first two editions of Leaves of Grass, it wasn't standard practice to include a picture of the author. But there he was, not in a proper suit but in everyday laborer's clothes where he showed a little chest fur. This shocked a lot of readers; the way he had his hand in one of his pockets was almost obscene. A sharp-eyed scholar, Ted Genoways, noticed that Whitman must've had the original Samuel Hollyer lithograph gradually modified each time to make his bulge a bit more (how do we say this delicately?) hung. Both radical faeries and gay bears have embraced him; it's hard not to compare him nursing dying Civil War soldiers to those helping those affected by AIDS. No matter how our perceptions of Whitman change, he remains remarkably resilient.
Your line "The electricity between us made me sing" is an allusion to Whitman's "I sing the body electric."
Leaves of Grass has had a number of editions, but my favorite is probably the second edition (1856). The first edition startled many people, yet he must've felt buoyed enough to include a few more homoerotic poems the second time around. I think Whitman has created perhaps 20 to 25 great poems in his lifetime, more than most poets could hope to ask for, and there are many astonishing phrases throughout the rest of his oeuvre. I made note of such phrases with the intent of quoting him in "America's First Coming Out," but when that poem got too unwieldy, I retained only a few direct quotes. I wove some of my unused favorite quotes throughout the fabric of my book instead.
What do you think Whitman would think of your book?
He would've been astonished to learn that his work is still being read and celebrated 160 years later. He would've been stunned to see how much easier it is to sell a book of poetry, and one that is openly gay. He would've also been enthralled by the Internet, and seized upon it as a democratic platform where writers and readers could connect directly. But more than that, I think he'd have been shocked to learn that anyone can write honestly about sex without the fear of being policed or losing their jobs. His jaw would've crashed at the floor from seeing the ease of downloading porn. He'd never have recovered.