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

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

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

Hanging out with the words

In Luis Alberto Ambroggio’s poem, ‘We are all Whitman,’ there is a repetitive listing of words. From the opening lines of the poem, such as ‘Hispanic, Latin, blond, black, olive-skinned, native and immigrant,’ Ambroggio enumerates the composition of citizens based on race and personality. This rhythmic enumeration of various words parallels Walt Whitman’s ‘I Sing the Body Electric,’ where the poet similarly lists body parts in a rhythmic method. Therefore, this poem is cacophony.

To interpret this poem, I’ve read it multiple times and realized that as the words are repeated and more commas appear, the reading tempo naturally accelerates, leading to an inherently faster pace. Reflecting on a class where the professor read Whitman’s poetry, I found myself reading too quickly, causing my heart to beat faster. The extensive listing of words seemed like a dance, and it was evident that Ambroggio hung out happily with words when composing this poem.

The poem not only presents a standard list of words but skillfully organizes them with similar sounds, especially for those reading the poem aloud. This arrangement guides readers to emphasize specific elements. For instance, immediately after ‘Self,’ he places ‘Hispanic,’ creating a simultaneous pronunciation of the ‘S’ sounds. Also, he arranges ‘poor’ and ‘rich,’ repeating the ‘r’ sounds. He accentuates the ‘t’ sound in ‘planting times’ and emphasizes the ‘C’ in ‘classes and cares,’ prompting distinct enunciation for the reader. These are Alliterations. Furthermore, there are Assonance examples in the poem. ‘Hispanic’ and ‘Latin’ share the parallel sound of ‘a.’ Additionally, ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’ repeat the ‘o’ sound, and ‘sprout’ and ’embodied’ similarly feature the repeated ‘o’ sound.

Overall, This poem, much like Whitman’s works, aimed to express the entire 8 billion humanity. Ambroggio seeks to portray how many people exist in the world, how orderly and chaotic the world is, how many ‘Walt Whitmans’ are living, and how we live, laugh, and dance in our lives.

Jisoo Jang

Jarring Recitation

Luis Alberto Ambroggio’s poem “We are All Whitman: #2 Song of/to/My/Your/Self”embodies similarity of the rhythmic enumeration to Walt Whitman’s poem “I Sing the Body Electric” through the aspects of recitation of poem, punctuation and the grammatical structure. Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric,” has an enumeration of body parts which causes a very cacophonous sound when the reader is reciting the poem. It all involves the emphasis when reading the high use of repetition, punctuation, and the listing of body words that allows the poem to continue with a very harsh flow. 

Ambroggio’s poem follows this Whitman style of poetry as it also involves similar aspects that could be pinned back to Whitman’s poem. Whitman uses the the long list of body parts to signify the founding over the human body through, “O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul, / O I say now these are the soul” (267), as he concluded to list off the the different parts of the body. While in Ambroggio’s poem, he explains the nature of an individual by looking back towards their roots from their skin color, religion, etc as they all come from somewhere. 

While closely looking Ambroggio’s poem, the sound the poem flows through while even having the listing of features. Whitman gave this very cacophonous sound as it involved harsh wording that Whitman purposely placed to be properly pronounced and articulated to support this main idea. However, Ambroggio’s poem had more of a graceful euphonious sound while also incorporating the enumeration. When both poems involve listing off words, the poem designs it to be recited in a particular way such as in Whitman’s case, the reader is needed to rapid fire the list of body parts that as the reader is reading the poem it intensifies them without much of caesura or end stop punctuation. Ambroggio follows the similar structure when further describing the individual’s identity through a list as without much a stop for a breather makes the reader recite the poem quickly. With both similar parts of the enumeration, they change the rhythm of the poem while having the reader recite it quickly as they do not have an intended meter, rhyme scheme, and punctuation that makes the reader pause and reflect on the text.

Naraint Catalan Rios

Free Verse Rhythm and Sound

After analyzing both of the poems and their free verse forms it is clear that both were created with similar goals in mind. Ambroggio is clearly using Whitman’s style and rhythm within his own poem. However instead of talking about the different parts of the body Ambroggio focuses on the diversity of cultures and ethnicities. The poem “We are all Whitman: #2 Song of/to/MyYou/Self” may be made as a way for Ambroggio to challenge Whitman’s ideas, since it is quite clear in his writing that he believes that all people have the ability to be poets and that even famous poets can fail at their craft. The rhythm in both poems tends to have a fast pace, which in turn gives the reader a sense of urgency when reading both pieces of work. This then adds to the overall chaos that each poem exudes.

In the poem “I Sing the Body Electric” by Walt Whitman the author focuses much more on the visual aspects of the person and then brings the main point together at the end with the line “O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul”. This quote shows that Whitman believes in the interconnectivity between the body and the soul even when the rest of the poem seems somewhat contradictory due to it being centered around  physical aspects of a person. In Ambroggio’s poem he focuses more on the aspects of human life that more or less define us such as ethnicity and socioeconomic status. This is further supported by the quote “ I am large, I contain multitudes” which expresses how every person has so many different layers to themselves and that physical appearance is only the cover page of the human soul.

Jamey Cain

IX_/-1VI fRe E veR s E . L (we are who we are)

The works “I sing the body electric” by Walt Whitman, and “We are all Whitman, Song of/to/My/Your/Body” by Luis Alberto Ambroggio, are two very similar poems. Even before reading the short excerpt explaining how Luis Ambroggio was inspired by Walt Whitman’s writing, it’s easy to see just how much of a tribute “Song of/to/My/Your/Body” is to “I sing the body electric”. One of the most striking similarities is that both pieces entertain the same chaotic beat. Both Whitman’s and Ambroggio’s poems employ heavy use of commas, as they list off ideas in a rapid-fire-like manner, where they bombard you with things to consider from all different angles. Any line plucked from a body-stanza of either of these poems appears this way. Idea after idea spliced by nothing but a comma, uncomfortably jerking you through the message until you allow yourself to submit and just enjoy the rollercoaster ride for what it is- a crazy rollercoaster ride. Both poems read more like pros than lyrics, and bear no apparent rhyme scheme for you to lean on either. Additionally, both poems end with a more spiritual, “enhanced” conclusion sentence. “I sing the body electric” ends with “O I say now these are the soul!”, an emotionally charged sentence which drives home his narrative, enhanced to stand out against the rest of the poem with the use of an exclamation point. “Song of/to/My/Your/Body” uses the same tactic but puts it into play slightly differently, ending with “I celebrate myself, and sing myself.” Derived to serve the same purpose as the ending line in Whitman’s work, this line instead uses italics to enhance it’s conclusion. And finally, both the poems drive home the same overall idea; all special and we must learn to appreciate and love ourselves.

There are, however, some key differences between these two poems which should not be overlooked. The most major difference is clearly the topic at hand in each respective poem, and how they navigate their separate ways to the aforementioned conclusion. Starting with Ambroggio’s “Song of/to/My/Your/Body”, we can see themes of ethnicity (“This Self is Puerto Rican, Chicano, from Cuba free dancer of merengues, from Santo Domingo and all the Caribbean, from El Salvador and Nicaragua”) and politics (“It is harassed and startled by propellers and shrapnel, by ashes and the hammer’s hard-won pennies. Boss and day laborer; still the job’s slave, painter of trenches, resourceful creator of roofs,…” and “They will not manage to deny me or ignore me or declare me undocumented”), coming together with the help of Ambroggio’s beautiful descriptions to show us that basically, we are who we are. Whitman’s “I sing the body electric” we see that the content of this poem revolves exclusively around different parts of the male and female body, and how they come together to help illustrate the fact that we are who we are. So even though the poems are addressing two totally different topics, they are still almost carbon copies of each other based off of their structure and final messages. It was funny, after reading them back to back I felt as if I had read the same poem, only a different story.

Hayden Namgostar

Free Verse Rhythm & Sound

After reading and analyzing the poems both Walt Whitman and Luis Alberto Ambroggio incorporate free verse in order to thoroughly describe the human body as well as different ethnicities. Ambroggio imitates Whitman in the sense that when the reader is done reading both poems they will be out of breath. The exhaustively long lists in Ambroggio’s “We are all Whitman: #2 Song of/to/MyYou/Self” establish a fast-paced rhythm throughout the poem. The fast-paced rhythm gives the reader the impression that the certain lists in the poem sound longer than they actually are. For example, Ambroggio lists “This Self is Puerto Rican, Chicano, from Cuba free dancer of merengues, from Santo Domingo and all the Caribbean, from El Salvador and Nicaragua”.

Whitman originally followed this structure in his poem, however  instead of focusing on the body Ambroggio focused on the many different cultures that span Latin America and the Middle East. Ambroggio then transitions into a long list “It comes from Mexico, Central America, from Costa Rica, Tikal, Guatemala, from their rainforests, lakes of salt and honey..”. While reading this long list the reader will begin to speed through it in an attempt to hear every sound the author intended them to. Ambroggio followed the same pattern as Whitman did, for example “The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud, Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming, Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening..” Whitman used extensive list after list causing the reader to read faster just how they would in Ambroggio’s poetic translation.

Joseph Jordan

The Order in Chaos

In “I Sing the Body Electric”, Walt Whitman uses the elements of cacophony, sound emphasis, and juxtaposition to get across his message. He includes cadenced verse by not rhyming lines or allowing scansion to be possible in the poem. He spends his poem describing the body and its importance but yet at the end believes it to be less than the soul. And as though the body is APART of the soul, thus making it less significant. Although Whitman juxtaposes both the elements of feminine and masculine body parts in the poem, he shows later that while he sees that while there are similarities between them he sees them to be completely different. He describes women by saying, “This is the female form, A divine nimbus… It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction” and separates them to be seen as a gorgeous object to be worshipped. He also believes that “Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman, The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk,…” Whitman additionally places a hyperfocus on womanhood being about bearing children purely by mentioning the elements normally associated with nursing and birth. Whitman by placing emphasis on the sound of these labels in womanhood and manhood aims to show that he sees the two of them being nothing without their parts of the body. Like how he sees a woman to be nothing without bearing children. He finds them to be the most important. But by doing this, he objectifies more specifically that women seem to be nothing without what they have to offer physically or their assets. Whitman talks highly of men by using free verse to be much more than women. He uses cacophony making the lines hard to read thus creating chaos within his poem to create these feelings of liberation through expressing this passion. Yet at the same time, while creating this chaos, he has an order to how he approaches it. The order within the poem IS the chaos.

In contrast, within a similar poem in terms of methodology, “We Are All Whitman: #2: Song of/to/My/Your/Self” by Luis Alberto Ambroggio, Ambroggio highlights chaos as well, but in a different light. He instead focuses more on the chaos within diversity and how within this chaos of being exposed to different people and ideologies, we are actually brought together. Through the highlighted differences between us, we become more than just ourselves. Ambroggio writes, “It is expressed and is not expressed by welcomes,/ the yowls of rejection and the sunless silence/ of indifference, every day, gray hands.” He wishes to remind us in the cacophony of these sentences being hard to pronounce that while everyday existence is hard, we go through the same struggles. We struggle through it and live on. Through both of these poems, we are exposed to varied points of view in life and two different viewpoints on humans. But it is important to remember that it is only through the meticulous work of each poem using rhyme and rhythm, experimenting with sound that we are able to stumble upon these messages.

poetry that leaves you gasping for air

By; sofia garcia

In poetry, there are rules. Some poets follow the rules of rhyme and meter while there are others that could care less about those rules. Those rule breakers created something called free verse. They try to fool their readers by claiming they are writing “free verse”, and that of course is matter of opinion. Free verse just means the poet made up their own rules to write their poem.

Whitman in his poem, “I Sing the Body Electric” he uses free verse. He writes in run-on sentences which contain very little punctuation, and literally leaves the reader breathless. There is no name for that, but it inspired poet Luis Alberto Ambroggio to write “We Are All Whitman: #2: Song of/ to/ My/ Your/ Self” and “Song of Myself:  Walt Whitman in Other Words” which are just as breathless as Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric”.

Surprisingly enough, Ambroggio actually writes in “We Are All Whitman: #2: Song of/ to/ My/ Your/ Self”, “In everyone’s Self,/the poem’s universal soul,/in each innumerable Walt Whitman,/cosmos without rubrics,/”, in which he references Whitman which led me to assume that he was Ambroggio’s inspiration to write theses poems as long as the tittles themselves.

When Professor Humberto Garcia, read “I Sing the Body Electric” to the class, he was out of breath by the time he was finished reading it. In contrast, when Luis Alberto Ambroggio, Christopher Merril, and Sholeh Wolpe read “Song of Myself:  Walt Whitman in Other Words” they sound like they are reading a book to the audience. The three narrators have their breathing composed.

In “I Sing the Body Electric” Whitman talks about how his poetry affects the body and proceeds to break it into parts in his poem. He goes on about this without stopping. He even says it in his poem, “I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with/my poems and that they are my poems” (Whitman lines7-8). This poet believes that poetry should reach every country so he goes on to list every country. It leads Ambroggio to have the same rhythmic enumeration. On the subject, translator and poet Sholeh Wolpe says that when you translate poetryyou get “into the bone of poetry.”