“A holy book of the nation, along with the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence,” - poet laureate Robert Hass on Leaves of Grass To mark their one-hundredth publication the noted fine press publisher Arion Press has chosen the 1855 first edition of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. Chosen in part as a tribute to the publisher's predecessors Edwin and Robert Grabhorn, whose masterpiece was their 1930 edition of the Whitman poem. “I thought Arion Press might do something with Whitman’s poetry that was different as to the text and yet pay tribute to the 1930 edition by using a similar format,...
I Sing the Blue Jeans Electric: Walt Whitman for Levi’s
"Hi, Walt Whitman for Levi's. A fustian cloth, rough-hewn, enduring, yeoman, riveted,the fabric of America. These are my pants.Boot-cut. Perfect fit. Get into them, O shapeless, unformed youth!"American poet, Walt Whitman, has been drafted by advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy of Portland to lead the battle cry, i.e. shill, for the American economy in general and Levi’s jeans in particular in an effort to get the demographic of the young into the venerable working-man’s pants that Whitman likely wore.“America’s poet was an optimist at a time when it as easier to be a pessimist. He lived through the civil war, one of...