The Power of Tempos

Luis Ambroggio and Walt Whitman’s poems share many similarities such as their lengthy size and song-like quality, however Luis Ambroggio distinguishes himself from Whitman by altering how some phrases are spoken. Whitman’s poem I Sing the Body Electric, strives and pushes the reader to put their all into the poem’s rendition leaving the speaker on the brink of breathlessness or completely out of breath, but in the process of making the free verse this challenging, it carries in itself an empowering voice. This causes the human body to carry itself with a sense of respect and strength, due to the imagery that Whitman employs and with the help of the cacophony present, which causes the reader to be left breathless thus adding to the illusion of strength.

Luis Ambroggio’s poem on the other hand, while having the length and similar run-on style, does not have an aggressive cacophony, rather the run style evokes a sense of closeness and this most exemplified from line 43 to line 59, of all the different ethnicities being named one after the other in a rapping style. By having these names being said in a rapid manner as the body parts from Whitman’s poem regarding body parts, they seem to roll off the tongue with no issue as to symbolize that despite being different groups from different regions, they are all intrinsically linked to one another. Something that differed from Whitman’s use of cacophony would be that despite the stanzas being similar, Ambroggio’s poem does not cause one to be completely out of breath, since it follows a singing tempo in contrast to Whitman’s exhausting tempo. 

Another aspect of Ambroggio rhythmic enumeration would be that at the start of the poem, the tone seems to be a bit disheartened, however as the poem progresses, alongside moving to a faster tempo, the message that is being told also begins to shift in tone, having both a positive and negative outlook, but concludes with a message to empower the audience of this poem. Ambroggio poem’s  euphonic voice allows for Ambroggio to portray a downtrodden world, but illustrates that without some hardship, a person will be able to enjoy the fruit of said hardship.

We Are All Whitman enumeration: different tempos

~Jeshua Rocha~

While reading the poem in class and witnessing the amount of energy it takes to read “I Sing the Body Electric”, the tone and rhythm that Luis Alberto Ambroggio took were not how I expected to hear the poem read. Every poet interprets a poem’s sounds and rhythms differently; therefore, this new perspective inspired me to reread the poem in a slower and more euphonic tone. Right away as I read the poem, I noticed that the words and meaning were more impactful than reading the poem in a cacophony tone. Since cacophony is a chaotic, noisy sound, we readers have a harder time understanding what the meaning is, and sometimes the words when read at such a fast pace. Yet, when listened to in a euphonic tone, the words are more understandable, and the meaning gets through. Therefore since this poem is a free-verse and has no meter or no set rhythm patterns, seeing the difference in tempo does make a difference in the word’s depth and impact.

Hence the poem essentially explores and details certain parts of the human body and their functions. Whitman man also describes how these functions make an individual. He lists out several different ages and events of a body. Therefore enumeration from Whitman is more focused on the human body, an example being, “ The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping”. This line itself caught my attention when heard in a cacophony tone because when studying the human body, you realize right away how perfect we are. How every cell has its purpose, every vein is connected, every muscle has its function, and how in our genes we are all unique. I suppose that since Whitman was a poet, he didn’t study the human body, but I grasped from this line, his praise for the human body. I took the cacophonic tone perfect for his poem which describes that the body is nothing less than a miracle. The human body has a cacophonic tone because there are always signals going off, cells rushing down the veins to do their job, the heart pumping oxygen down our arteries, and muscles moving at our every twitch, therefore we ourselves are noisy in a beautiful way. Yet Luis Alberto Ambroggio elaborates more on people’s identities, which is completely different from Whitman’s enumeration. When reread in a euphonic tempo you realize the depth in which it changes the meaning of the poem for more praise towards us humans, for example, “All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one’s body, male or female”. In all these two different perspectives both have the same impactful tempo for us readers.

The Body is Unique

In the poem, “We are All Whitman Song of/to/My/Your/Self” by Luis Alberto Ambroggio, didn’t sound like it had a rhythm in the poem, just like Walt Whitman’s poem, “I Sing the Body Electric.” Both these poems didn’t have a rhythm within the poems but both are described differently among people and the body. For instance in the poem by Ambroggio, he is describing all these races “With all the colors that stir up their race, Roman, Celtic, Hebrew, Moor, Hispanic, Aborigine, with kingdoms of multitudes fresh in the tree of life” in which all races are what brings the beauty of the many aspects of culture. On the other hand, Walt Whitman’s poem “I Sing the Body Electric” is referring to a large list of the body parts of female and male, to describe their difference in beauty. An example would be “Leg-fibers, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg. Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel; All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one’s body, male or female” (Whitman 17). With this being said, I believe it interprets the male and female body as being almost one, as if their differences have contributed to their own unique beauty.

In the second video, Luis Alberto Ambroggio was asked how he felt based on Walt Whitman, the emotions he was going through in that poem. He interprets his poetic translation towards a rhythmic enumeration of body parts based on the poem, “I Sing the Body Electric” by Walt Whitman. Ambroggio’s translation of Whitman’s poem was really a softer, than a rapid stance than we might have interpreted. Ambroggio’s interpretation of the poem gave him the sense of transformation in really understanding and having a connection with the poem. In Walt Whitman’s poem, there was no need to skim through it because it didn’t follow with a meter. Although his poem didn’t occur to have a meter, the poem did have a rhythm that seemed to be and sound as a pounding of a heartbeat. As I go through the poem, it is almost impossible to stop nor pause because of the amount of run on sentences. To say the poem out loud without hardly a pause has our hearts in a rapid pace, just as our body is trying to find its rhythm, its normal pace, once more. That being said, both poems are in a sense describing the diversity between races, cultures, and gender as beautiful from the many perspectives of difference.

Celeste Tejeda-Menera

From One Within to One Outside

~Alondra Garcia~

Reading the poems prior to the watching the recordings on how other people perceive the poems was interesting. Whilst I rushed in and sped up the tempo of the writing as a form of making it sound, to myself at least, as a strong and bold literature piece in comparison to a softer slowed version seen in the video was different. I believe I can at the piece strong due to how the previous Walt Whitman piece From “I Sing the Body Electric” was done in a fast tempo with a strong voice kind of set the tone for me in terms of reading Whitman. When listening to his other piece form different voices and perspective it made me see Ambroggio’s piece differently, and so I did another reread but with a different tempo. The slowed tempo made it feel more impactful and even gave the poem a more depth to it. Though the difference in tempo does not mean it differs to Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric” all that much. 

When comparing Whitman’s piece to Luis Alberto Ambroggio I can see the inspiration drawn from Whitman’s poem to Ambroggio’s. For starters we have that lack of rhythm in the sense that it lacks in rhymes, in a type of non structured form that flows freely, something we see seems to continuously see in Whitman’s pieces. The poem like Whitman’s may lack in rhyme but makes up for it in the feeling of the rhythm when speaking it. Another thing I noticed was the similar yet different take on the themes. Obviously they would be similar due to Whitman being the inspiration for Ambroggio, the “intro” is a quote of Whitman’s and there is a shoutout to him as well. But they do have this similar vibe to each other of the love of the body and soul, the different take being Whitman focuses on no one and nothing in general but the person themselves while Ambroggio has a more centered approach to ethnicity, nationality, and color giving more shoutout to specific minorities and a specific connection to them. 

We’re all Whitman, enumeration: Edmund Feng

Looking closely at the poem, we can tell right away that there isn’t exactly any sort of pattern to follow, which means there’s no specific rhythmic pattern, nor is there some sort of enumeration in it. As such, we can consider this sort of poetry to be free verse poetry. From a basic overview, this poem essentially speaks about the themes of identity and diversity. The dashes in the poem title further serve to show us the purpose behind that, segregating them almost like the races in real life are. It speaks about the people in the world, although different in many ways, like wealth, identity, spirit, and so on, all belong in the same existence and should be united. When we move to the actual wording system in each though, here’s what I’ve gleaned. walt Whitman has some enumeration on the body, for example, “Head/neck/hair/ears/Drop”. In Luis Alberto’s poem though, he elaborates more on the identities of people, as opposed to the beauty of the body, such as “Romans/Celtics/Hebrews/Moors,” or “Hispanics/Aborigines/”.

Then, moving back to Walt Whitman’s poem, we can look into the actions and descriptions of individuals, such as “Swim with the Swimmers. wrestle with wrestlers, marching in line with the firemen” before comparing it to Luis Alberto’s poem on struggles, like “Boss and day laborer, still the job’s slave, painter of trenches, resourceful creator.” Once more, each poem has an enumeration on its OWN set topic, with Luis Alberto more focused on the workings of identity, race, and diversity, and Walt Whitman on the beauty of the human body. Although both are free verse, both share similar rhyming tendencies and enumerations.

Self-care and love

The two poems, seem to equally categorize particular things that they find important. For instance in Whitman’s case, “ his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,” (Whitman 13). As well as you’ll also find that in Ambroggio’s writing, he also creates these lists, except he seems to be much longer, “This Self is Puerto Rican, Chicano, from Cuba free dancer of merengues, from Santo Domingo and all …” (Ambroggio 43-45). When reading these lists out loud it sounds very fast pace almost like they’re in a rush to say what they want to say. I also noticed how the two writings had really long and potentially run-on sentences, as well as it seems like the two poems didn’t exactly have some type of structure or format. 

Whitman’s poem “ I Sing the Body Electric”, it that the poem seems to continuously have a fast-paced/rhythmed poem, as well as to some extent it feels very rushed. Whitman appears to be very passionate in regards to the anatomy of the body as well as generally the sexual aspect of it. Another thing I noticed was the way that Whitman made alliteration by using the same words to create similar-sounding words such as “Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances”, this helps to create more emphasis on certain parts for the reader to interpret. 

When reading Luis Alberto Ambroggio’s poem “We are All Whitman: #2 Song of/to/My/Your/Self “, I noticed that Ambroggio puts a lot of emphasis on the repetitive use of certain words as well as playing around with contradictions. Throughout Ambroggio’s poem, he plays around a lot with the rhythm by using words that have to do with sequences, ex: “today, here, yesterday, and forever”. By doing so it creates an emphasis on the time sequences that can play into the meaning of his poem, and the passion he has. Whilst reading Ambroggio’s poem there was lots of emphasis regarding human passion and their hopes, as well as the pain that everyone has to go through. When you read Ambroggio’s poem I found that he has longer lists and that it relates to Whitman’s style regarding free verse. Unlike Whitman’s poem, Ambroggio appears to focus more on “Self”, self-care, struggles, etc. “Boss and day laborer; still the job’s slave, painter of trenches, resourceful creator of roofs, pavement on the agony of yesterday’s blood and the even-now of the Monday of beginnings and the Sunday of holy days.” (Ambroggio 62-65). In this quote, the poet seems to be talking about the amount of hard work that they do daily to sustain themselves, as well as not only are they working hard now, but their ancestors have been fighting for their beliefs all this time. 

The two poems seemed to have a sense of showing that people should love and cherish themselves, which is something that I liked. I also found that Ambroggio takes inspiration from Whitman (and his structure) and makes it into his type of writing, which is always really cool to see from writers.

Yue Wu-Jamison

Momentum and Freedom

As Walt Whitman talks about the self-love for the human body, its nature and its action in I Sing the Body Electric, Luis Alberto Ambroggio uses We are all Whitman to talk about race, human nature, immigration, discrimination, authoritarianism, rebellious freedom, being silenced, and amplifying the people’s voices. These topics are amplified by the used of commas to create rhythm, while Whitman uses a lot more cacophony creating a constant need to clear your throat, Ambroggio had a less cacophony, I felt I could read it fast without many mistakes with a few times needing to catch my breath. However, whenever there was cacophony within Ambroggio’s poem, it indicated importance,

This Self is Puerto Rican, Chicano,

from Cuba free dancer of merengues,

from Santo Domingo and all the Caribbean,

from El Salvador and Nicaragua.

It comes from Mexico, Central America,

from Costa Rica, Tikal, Guatemala,

from their rainforests, lakes of salt and honey,

from Panama, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela,

the corn crops of the Argentine pampas,

Chile’s veins of grapes, Bolivia’s reed flute,

from the Mayas, Quechuas, Aztecs, Incas,

from the Guaranís, from the Amazon, Ecuador,

from the Uruguay of the Charrúas and its shores,

gauchos, criollos, Europeans, mestizos,

mulattos, the fair-skinned, Turks, Asians, Syrian or Lebanese,

waifs, streetwalkers, huddled masses of Latin America

with their many names.

(Ambroggio, Lines 43-59)

In this excerpt, we can see that Ambroggio mentions that “The Self” is all of these people, I take it to mean that everyone can share the sense of being life, that by having a soul, no matter who you are or where you are from, you can have freedom, freedom from oppression, discrimination, society even. In the same excerpt, we can see the commas in play. In the way I read the poem, they act as yellow signals at a traffic light, don’t read too fast but don’t pause, to keep momentum, and as I keep momentum, I can feel the emotions a rebel would have, I sound like I am demanding for change and that everyone is free. I say that “I am large, I contain multitudes. / They will not manage to deny me or ignore me or declare me undocumented:” (Ambroggio, Lines 92-93) and it makes me feel representative of a people who do not want to back down. The inspiration from Whitman doesn’t make you feel electric in Ambroggio’s poem, but it does make you feel anger, or perhaps, frustration, and in turn it makes you feel life you demand change in how you are treated. “I am written in you, in all / as all are in me,” (Ambroggio, 94-95) adds on to make us feel like we are a people and that we are together. The style Whitman and Ambroggio use makes your body have a reaction to words on a page, it makes you feel involved, it makes the poem alive, it makes you the poem. Whitman uses body parts to convey a reaction toward the body, of ourselves or of others, it allows for unfiltered freedom of expression, just like Whitman was in I Sing the Body Electric, he talks about womanhood, manhood, expressing love to the body, intimate or sexual. I think that Ambroggio translated the reaction towards the poem from Whitman, the key difference is that instead of causing appreciation and self-love towards the body and its nature, he rallies the reader, makes them take center stage to lead a cause towards a freedom everyone can have.

Roman Arroyo

Body=Soul=Beauty

 In Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric”, he uses fast-paced or almost too little to no periods to convey his message. Just like in Luis Alberto Ambroggio’s poem “We Are All Whitman” where he uses little to no periods until the next stanza to show his message. Like Whitman’s poem, Whitman is trying to tell the world that the body is the soul, and the soul is the body. For what we wish to perceive to love from the outside of man we should also choose to love the inside since they coincide.
 In Ambroggio’s poem, he follows in Whitman’s footsteps to tell this story but also adds some of his personal form to it. He adds in how Latin countries were colonized and yet, they stay strong and comfortable in their bodies. Even though they had to experience great scrutiny their souls and bodies belonged to themselves, and the colonizers couldn’t take that away. In stanza 5 he says “This Self is Puerto Rican, Chicano, from Cuba free dancer merengues, from Santo Domingo and all the Caribbean, from El Salvador and Nicaragua” he lists Latin American countries in the same way that Walt Whitman listed body parts and went down a list to how they connect with each other. These two poems show the same rhythm when they start listing countries and parts of the body, it gives a strong and powerful vibe that one can’t stop till their body gets tired or has to inhale again to read more. That is what makes these two poems flow so nicely and give the feeling of how our souls are beautiful and how everyone is intertwined with each other in some way or another even though we all are different we are all so similar.
 Ambroggio translates his poem into Whitman by not only expressing how he loves Whitman’s interpretation but by taking from Whitman’s poem and poetically making his own baby poem with it. For example, they both use alliteration throughout both poems to evoke a notion of feeling to the reader to read with more emphasis and to see if they can follow through the words being the same sounds. Another thing is from the video of Luis speaking in an authoritative voice I took that into the translation and read it thoroughly that way to see that both poems could be compelling to get their readers to have the same views about their bodies and souls to be beautiful rhythmically.

Kelly Flores

One Self, One soul

Reading We Are All Whitman: #2: Song of/to/My/Your/Self It has a lot of passion, pain, and expressiveness. The rhythm is like the pace of a heart, having moments that are quickly paced while other parts in the poem are not, but some pauses allow readers to bask in the idea the poem is trying to convey. However, I notice differences in the rhythm of the two poems. Although both have many similarities, Ambroggio has more pauses and expresses a different sort of emotion. With this poem, he expresses the deep feelings he feels for discrimination and injustice among colored people.. Like Whitman, he also lacks periods, which creates a lot of run-ons. Some things rolled off my tongue as I read the fast-paced parts, which flowed perfectly together. In Line 11, “offspring of poor and rich, of lettered and unlettered. ”  This poem, like Whitman’s, has many long sentences. But in a way, these long sentences imitate the stress in his voice, the tiredness of it all. When he goes on about the treatment certain groups of people get, he starts every chunk of text with the same word for the most part, starting with a repetition of the word from to repeating the word It from lines 43- 82. He wanted to bring the poem together and started doing it toward the end. 

This poem starts similar to Whitman’s… people are people, but things can go one way or another, but some differences set them apart; unlike Whitman, I feel he almost embraced differences, pointing them out. Whitman was getting across the point that at the end of the day, no matter what, you have your human with an oil. He uses a lot of symbolism, showing that although people might be from different worlds, certain things remain the same. He expresses his love and hate for creation… the good and bad, yes the physical world we live in, the anatomy..etc might be great but the personalities not as much. This leads to my point on his comparing things to one another. This poem is about identity, problems that certain groups of people face, and problems that Luis himself has gone through. This poem highlights that although God made humans in his image to be considered “perfect,” all are far from it. In the end, regardless of people sharing similarities in anatomy, it doesn’t automatically mean there will be respect.

A way that I saw Ambroggio’s poem translates the rhythmic enumeration of body parts in Whitman’s poem was very prominent in this specific part. I immediately noticed a connection between the two: “It suffers now, and in the next gust of wind, the discriminating smoke of random breath, for good or bad of those who intoxicated breathe ignorance or haughtiness without clusters of stars, mountains, heavenly clouds, wellsprings of gifts and meadows.” It shows similarities to what Whitman said in lines 6-10: “Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the Eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids. Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges.Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition. Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck,neck-slue.Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, Hind-shoulders, And The ample  Side-round Of The chest,” list things in the same categories to ensure the reader understands their feelings. Overall, as for the meaning of the poems, I felt the end goal was entirely different. Whitman expresses his love for the body and the music all the body parts can make, while Ambroggio sheds a dim light on the fact that creation is beautiful but discusses how the world, indeed, can be. But I could see both trying to find peace in themselves, loving themselves despite what others say, and accepting who they are.

Victoria Sasere

Whitman 2: Electric Broggio

In “I Sing the Body Electric”, Walt Whitman lists a variety of body parts. The grouping of the list and the lack of periods creates a pounding rhythm. Luis Alberto Ambroggio captures this same rhythm within “We are All Whitman: #2: Song of/to/My/Your/Self”. The first three stanzas of Ambroggio’s poem do not have a period until the end of each stanza. In stanza five, Ambroggio lists many places that readers of this poem might come from. Although this section includes periods, it still mimics the same beat that Whitman captured. It successfully emulates the rhythmic listing from “I Sing the Body Electric”. Ambroggio’s limited use of periods creates a sense of urgency that is present in Whitman’s original poem. Both poems offer an awareness of the reader’s self and body, but Ambroggio’s includes another layer of human experience, identity, and history. If someone were to recite both poems, they would notice the effort it takes to say each line without pausing. In this way, your body comes alive and you feel each word creating an impact. These poems embody cacophony through the lines that run together yet require such focus to recite.
In lines 18 and 19 of “I Sing the Body Electric”, Whitman emphasizes that he is talking about all people (including himself) which is similar to Ambroggio saying, “I am written in you, in all, / as all are in me”. Ambroggio does list variations of the same items like “men, women, young people and old” but also uses the run-on sentences to expand on more expansive ideas such as “boss and day laborer; still the job’s slave, / painter of trenches, resource creator of roofs, / pavement”. Whitman mentions familial relations, but Ambroggio goes further by emphasizing people’s other identities and roles in society. Whitman creates alliteration by repeating words like “hip, hip-sockets, hip-strength”. Ambroggio emulates this effect through lines with assonance that repeat noises like “it is HARASSed and STARtled by propellERS and SHRApnel, / by ASHES and the HAmmER’S HARd-won pennIES”. This line includes many “sh” and “er” sounds.

Ultimately, Ambroggio pays homage to “I Sing the Body Electric” via a similar pacing and descriptive style but moves away from a generalized description of body parts to explore other less physically evident elements of humanity.

~Miki Chroust