Song of the Open Road

I know I have mentioned this poem before in my blog, but I didn't go into a lot of detail about my favorite parts and verses of it. I personally have spent lots of time on the road myself, whether it be me having a fun road trip or having to drive my mom somewhere I don't want to go, I still always find myself wandering the roads. In Song of the Open Road, Whitman describes the road as a happy place because everyone on the road is adventuring and experiencing the earth instead of being hidden away indoors. I notice this also.. though I don't know if I believe everyone is happy like they were during Whitman's time. This is one of my favorite verses...
"Oh highway I travel! Oh public road! Do you say to me, Do not leave me?
Do you say, Venture not? If you leave me, you are lost?
Do you say, I am already prepared-- I am well-beaten and undenied-- adhere to me?"
Here, Whitman is saying that the road is a concept that you find out for yourself; that the road doesn't have to beg for your attention but it already has your full attention. At least that's how I interpret it and we all read poetry the way we want to read it.. we get what we want out of them. I can relate with Whitman so well in Song of the Open Road because he finds happiness on the road, exploring.. venturing out on a quest. He considers indoors a place of solitude and loneliness where he is stuck with his dark thoughts whereas finds comfort in traveling the road. In this next verse that is explained this is what he says..
"Oh public road! I say back, I am not afraid to leave you-- yet I love you!
You express me better than I can express myself ;
You shall be more to me than my poem."
and that verse just spoke to me. I cannot relay Whitman's message, because I am getting what I want out of it so I'm not going to try to explain the meaning behind this.. but I can say that I often use driving as a way to forget my problems and think about life so this is the way it spoke to me. Traveling is the best stress reliever and you can learn a lot about yourself along the journey. Okay, onto the next verse..
"From this hour, freedom!
From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Listening to others and considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will,
divesting myself of the holds that would hold me."
*Divesting meaning (to rid or free from.)
To me, it sounds like Whitman has just freed himself from something very bad that was holding him back and now he is liberated. He needed the road trip to do some soul searching for himself by meeting new people and hearing their stories. The second line in the verse that reads "From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines" says to me that Whitman has just realized the only limit to discovery was himself and he opened up his mind to a new perspective. Now I am just explaining how this poem speaks to me personally, others may interpret differently. But this next two lines is what I really enjoy, Whitman says..
"I inhale great daughters of space;
The east and the west are mine and the north and the south are mine."
I think the great daughters of space is the earth or the air, that belongs to everyone. When he writes, the east and the south are mine, the north and the south are mine, I interpret that to mean that the earth is mine, yours, ours, everyone's; and those limits and imaginary lines he mentions in the verse before that are the limits that hold us back from adventures on earth. I definitely know the feeling of freedom and liberation when I'm on the road, going anywhere I choose. I'm still trying to figure all of it out but I believe I have it figured out my own way. Poetry is meant to be read in a very personal way and to have many ways of perceiving them so I thought.
The overall feeling and emotion I get from the poem is positive and happy and free, that's why it's one of my personal favorites. It made me happy reading my copy of Leaves of Grass and envisioning Walt Whitman traveling, meeting people along the way of his journey.. It feels like maybe things just haven't changed that much since the 1940's. I think I will come back to this later in a similar blog post.. Until then. Xoxo <3