"Do I contradict myself?
Very well, I contradict myself.

I am large.

I contain multitudes."


So said the words of the Song of Myself to me when I was in my twenties, laying on the grass of my backyard, attempting this book for the fourth time, certain of ruin and right on the cusp of the second when the whole universe opened before me and drew me into the Song of Myself that was the Song of Every-Self and The Song of the Universe.

It's is with great ride and even greater pleasure that I can report that this indepth commentary on Song of Myself is stellarly researched and presented side piece for Whitman's poem. I learned more than I ever knew to find in the poems, even with years of decicated study and two English degrees.

Whitman was a brilliant man, and like many brilliant Transcendentalists of his time, he was not as understood in his time as he would be understood and beloved by the times who would follow later, studying him and cheering on his words, his life, his causes, in a way that would never have been something he strove for. He cheered for the underdog and he spoke, fluent and fluid, about the universality of all self and all experiences, as well as those things which blind us to it and pull us apart.

I am deeply grateful to the publishers and author for the permission to read this book. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I leave you, reminded again by those sage words, that I am large and not a bit tame in myself, in my others, and the universe itself.