Emily didn't read Walt, either.

"As for his book Leaves of Grass, I have heard Walt Whitman is disgraceful."



And I think Stevens also claimed not to read Whitman? Or rather, to have read him, and to continue to read him, but to basically dismiss or discount large chunks of his work? Yes, here it is:



"It was only a few years ago when Joaquin Miller of Walt Whitman were considered to be approximations of a typical image. But were they? Weren't they recognized by people of any sense at all as, personally, poseurs? They belong in the same category of eccentrics to which queer-looking actors belong."*



And later, this:



"In order to comment on Walt Whitman concientiously, I ought to re-read him and this is more than I have time to do at the moment. Last Sunday I read him for several hours and if a few offhand remarks as a result of that reading would be of any interest to you, here they are.



I can well believe that he remains highly vital for many people. The poems in which he collects large numbers of concrete things, particularly things each of which is poetic in itself or as part of the collecton, have a validity which, for many people, must be enough and must seem to them all opulence and elan.



"For others, I imagine that what was once opulent begins to look a little threadbare and the collections seem substitutions for opulence even though they remain gatherings-together of precious Americana, certain to remain precious but not certain to remain poetry. The typical elan survives in many things.



"It seems to me, then, thtat Whitman is disintegrating as the world, of which he made himself a part, disintegrates. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry exhibits this disintegration.



"The elan of the essential Whitman is still deeply moving in the things in which he was himself deeply moved. These would have to be picked out from compilations like Song of the Broad-Axe, Song of the Exposition.



"It is useless to treat eveyrthing in Whitman as of equal merit. A great deal of it exhibits little of none of his specific power. He seems often to have driven himself to write like himself. The good things, the superbly beautiful and moving things, are those that he wrote naturally, with an extemporaneous and irrepressible vehemence of emotion."**



*Letter to Harvey Breit, July 29, 1942.

**Letter to Joseph Bennet, February 8, 1955.