I Celebrate Myself

If I read the preface as a young man, I have completely forgotten it. Some excellent thinking material here. As a young man Whitman made me feel like I could write poetry. As an old man I stand in awe at how easy he makes it seem. This is a small quote from the preface, which I'm slowly chewing through:

If the poet "breathes into anything that was before thought small it dilates with the grandeur and life of the universe. He is a seer. . .he is individual. . .he is complete in himself. . .the others are as good as he, only he sees it and they do not. He is not one of the chorus. . .he does not stop for any regulation. . .he is the president of regulation. What the eyesight does to the rest he does to the rest. Who knows the curious mystery of the eyesight? The other senses corroborate themselves, but this is removed from any proof but its own and foreruns the identities of the spiritual world." - Walt Whitman, 1855