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

Whitman and Ambroggio’s Celebration Of Life

Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric” utilizes the rhythmic enumeration to emphasize the beauty of every human body by continually using commas as punctuations rather than periods. Throughout the poem, Whitman lists categories of the human body, for example, “Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused, mine too diffused” (Whitman, 266). In this quote, there are multiple commas where he talks about body parts and how body parts operate, like the bending of the legs. Whitman is expressing his love for the simple actions of humans and how we move our day to day. 

In Ambroggio’s poem, “Song of/to/My/Your/Self,” Ambroggio also utilizes Whitman’s technique of adding commas as punctuation as the rhythm enumeration. The comma adds to the fact that the rhythm is not supposed to stop, which is intentional. With a period, that means it’s the end of the sentence, while the comma is meant to keep his appreciation for life going. While Whitman expresses the love for every human, Ambroggio takes that approach by listing different countries, which expands from just body parts to actually giving representation to actual places where these people reside. For instance, one section says, “This Self is Puerto Rican, Chicano, from Cuba, free dancer of merengues, from Santo Domingo and all the Caribbean, from El Salvador and Nicaragua” (Ambroggio, 2016). Ambroggio highlights not only the people there but also the items in their daily lives, and he later goes on to list grapes and flutes when he is praising these places. This poem draws off Whitman’s celebration of others but also ends the poem by praising himself. Overall, Ambroggio does an excellent job of taking inspiration from Whitman’s poem and spinning it into his own lists of the things humans do and what surrounds humans. Both poems sit back and take their time appreciating common human qualities many don’t think about as often.

Janayah Applon

Identical Twins with Different Personalities

“Song of/to/My/Your/Self” and “I Sing the Body Electric” are like twins that look identical, but have small differences in their personality.They both talk about the same thing, yet they portray their subject in completely different ways. “Song of/to/My/Your/Self” talks about what a person does, while “I Sing the Body Electric” talks about what a person is. “Song of/to/My/Your/Self” uses the same rhythm all the way through, while “I Sing the Body Electric” varies more. “I Sing the Body Electric” also has shorter lines, and is read slower than “Song of/to/My/Your/Self” – it feels like you’re running through the stanzas. Even though both poems discuss the same subject, they portray it differently. This difference in description parallels how everyone has a relatively similar physical body, but on the inside we are drastically different. An interesting way to assess the rhythm and overall sound of both poems is looking at punctuation. “Song of/to/My/Your/Self” and “I Sing the Body Electric” both use a period at the end of each stanza, as well as commas to slow down and speed up each poem.

Anne K. Anderson

T.V. Static in the Body

By Dijonae Davis

Luis Alberto Ambroggio’s poem, “We Are All Whitman: #2: Song of/to/My/Your/Self” and Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric” both have the rhythmic enumeration of static on a forgotten t.v. station. The poems sound like how it feels when your leg or foot falls asleep, almost numbing. Both Ambroggio’s and Whitman’s poems are quick in the enumeration of their words. They both describe the human body. Whitman describes the human body generally stating, “That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.”, while Ambroggio chooses to go a more specific route, referring to skin color and ethnic origin stating, “This Self—Hispanic, Latin, blond, black,olive-skinned, native and immigrant—dispersed far and wide”. Both men references the human body in list form, forcing the ready to read it quickly. They are similar in the sense that are both free verse poems. This kind of pace is precise for Whitman’s poem because it’s almost as if it’s read as a heart beating fast. Ambroggio’s poem translates the rhythmic enumeration of body parts because he’s also speaking in an almost out of breath manner, the same manner Whitman uses.  They move a rapid pace, and reading them, especially out-loud will have you sweating and breathing like you just walked up fifteen flights of stairs. Now why would Professor Garcia subject me to such cruel and unusual punishment when I knows I’m out of shape and can’t handle this? Tune in next week to find out! 

DON’T BREATHE

Diane Tarabay-Rodriguez

By reading and closely analyzing both poems: “I Sing The Body Electric” by Walt Whitman and “We Are All Whitman: #2: Song of/to/My/Your/Self” by Luis Alberto Ambroggio. It is inevitable to miss the close resemblance that both poems share. You can clearly see that Ambroggio’s poem translates the rhythmic enumeration of body parts in whitman’s poem. You can instantly tell that both poems are free verse because they contain an irregular form and meter, while still maintaining a poetic structure. As I began reading Ambroggio’s poem I instantly began to feel out of breath. Just like in “I Sing The Body Electric”, it was composed of run-on sentences with no chance of a pause. It felt like I was completely immersed into a completely new world of poetry. My body began to pulseate due to the pulsating sound of both poems. Take these lines for example:

“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…”(Ambroggio, 47-53)

This part continues with eight more lines, which contain commas but no periods. Despite there being commas, you feel the need to keep on going without a pause. Stopping for only a quick second for a small gasp of air. This is what makes this poem as majestic as “I Sing My Body Electric”. You are not only captivated by the message of both poems but for their use of rhythmic enumeration. The poems give the reader an experience of cacophony. The beauty of both poems is that they seem chaotic, yet there is order in the chaos. All the rhymes in both poems depend on the sound pattern and NOT on meter. If you closely analyze both poems you can see that they are both very long and they go on and on with only a few periods.

Free verse is limitless

By: Jasmine Carrillo

Both Luis Alberto Ambroggio and Walt Whitman use descriptive enumeration in their favor throughout their poems. The lists in Amroggios “We are all Whitman: #2 Song of/to/MyYou/Self” are what establish the rhythm throughout the poem. Specially, the run-on sentences are what causes the rhythm to sound as if it is somewhat speeding up. When lists are longer, it causes one to lose their breath due to us speeding through them when reading. This fast paced rhythm also causes the shorter lists in the poem to sound longer than they actually are. This is exactly what Whitman did in his poem but instead of listing body parts, Ambroggio translated this method in his own way and made many lists of numerous things.

For example, Ambroggio lists “It comes from Mexico, Central America, from Costa Rica, Tikal, Guatemala…” When one is reading this extremely long list we tend speed up through it the further down the list we go. This goes hand in hand in how Whitman lists “This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person, The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard…” Whitman has list after list making the reader want to speed up like they would do in Ambroggio’s poem.

Both Ambroggio and Whitman use the similar strategy of using rhythmic enumeration. They use this in their own way to make their poems flow the way they want them to.

The Soul of Self as an Entity

Self love, soul, and pride are themes often weaved into all forms of media such as movies, songs, paintings, or in this case, poetry; both Ambroggio and Whitman’s poems enunciate the many intricacies that make up their love of self in their respective poems, “We Are All Whitman: #2: Song of/to/My/Your/Self” and “I Sing the Body Electric.”

Though Ambroggio’s poem speaks more about the love of himself in terms of ethnicity/nationality and embracing the history, he does translate a similar rhythmic enumeration. As established in class, there is a movement to Whitman’s poem as it rolls up and down and fluctuates tones when read aloud, achieved by utilizing euphonic word combinations. Ambroggio also uses the same euphony as the structure of his poem also moves with a rhythm to it in spite of both poems lacking any formal meter or rhythmic pattern. 

Much of the similarities between the two also comes from their long length and lack of breathing space when read aloud. Both poems drive themselves forward through momentum built by constant listing of nouns/ideas and anaphora such as Ambroggio’s “from El Salvador and Nicaragua. It comes from Mexico, Central America, from Costa Rica, Tikal, Guatemala” (46-48) and the entire body of Whitman’s poem as he goes through the many body parts while almost always leading with “the” as the anaphora. Though both poems do have the rhythm flow akin to the pumping of a heart, Abroggio takes a slower pace with his poem as there is more space between his listings whereas Whitman’s are majority single-word listings.

Not only does Ambroggio carry on Whitman’s sense of beating, electric rhythm, but his poem carries on the same sense of self love and pride, even if seen as a larger picture than just the physical body itself. It expands upon Whitman’s original idea of self love, soul, and pride, continuing a poetic lineage and paving a path for future forms of art so that they may further beyond the love of one’s people to something even greater.

with every breath i take.

By: Jocelyn Lemus

Being able to breathe and read these poems at the same time became difficult. These poems took control of my tongue, of my entire mouth.  There was no pause button as I read, the beat and rhythm of the poems were possessing my body into another dimension. As I was intensely reading both I Sing The Body Electric by Walt Whitman and We Are All Whitman: #2: Song of/to/My/Your/Self by Luis Alberto Ambroggio there is a comparison when they both used their way to manipulate words into an up beat of a rhythm and sound. These two poems carry similarities because they connect with the types of freestyle they used. They were both able to express themselves in these poems like if there wasn’t a forever. Once they began writing and reciting these poems, it seemed like there was no end to it. Being able to pour the whole soul into poems is what I saw coming out of these two poets. Their poems not only took control over the bodies of the audience, but it also took control over the bodies of the writer. The translation of rhythmic enumeration of the body parts in these two poems levitated the soul in one piece. When levitating the soul, I mean to say that the poems became like a concert to the reader, it made the person read intensely as if periods did not existed.

To add on, to specify on the up beats of both poems, these to poets used certain lines on stanzas that incredibly dominated the readers tongue and lungs as they read. For instance, in I Sing The Body Electric by Walt Whitman, he mentions,

“Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,

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”( Whitman 9). 

When I was approaching these lines, I became prepared to take a big ball of air into my lungs because I knew I was not going to have time to breathe in between the lines. For this poem shall not have broken spaces between the lines. I tried reading it like Professor Garcia, with so much to say and so little comes out. As if I was trying to say the last words coming out of my mouth as I took my last breath of being alive. With so much adrenaline and rush coming out of the system. You’d be surprised with the wonders the body is capable of doing.

In addition, Luis Alberto Ambroggio also uses lines that take your breath away unconsciously. For example, in We Are All Whitman: #2: Song of/to/My/Your/Self, he emphasizes,

“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..”(Ambroggio 5). 

When reading this outloud, it becomes important to say it fast with an intense rythmn, not only because the words take you there, but because the author does too. Ambroggio wants to manipulate us with his words into going fast because when saying all these place and countries he wants us to say it together because that is exactly what he wants the reader to take from it. The ability to not only say these places are united, but to actually feel it in your bloodstream flow across your body.

To wrap it up, both Walt Whitman and Luis Alberto Ambroggio translate each others’ body parts from each poems because they share a similar rhythm and sound. They both use the ability to fasten the beats by multiplicating the commas enhancing the sound of the readers’ voice. Even though, both poems might send in a different message, the beat still demonstrates the similarities of how they are trying to both send the message. They try to get the attention of the reader in order to send the messages through multiples strategies. Therefore, these two poets share the translation of body parts through their poems.

“You Cannot Erase Me, I am You.”

By Mitaya La Pierre

Walt Whitman made a statement the day he decided to write “I Sing the Body Electric”; the statement being that poetic form shouldn’t be restrictive. And by having his poem be comprised mainly of listless body parts, and nonuniform speech, he conveys the uniqueness of going against that grain. As well as show boating what it means to be American; to do things differently. This was significant because it detached itself from the former British way of writing poetry; with calculated beats, and rhythms. Now it goes without saying that Walt Whitman’s poem does have rhythm, but it’s faster and far more provocative than poems before it. This “Free Verse”, as it has been coined, inspired Luis Alberto Ambroggio to write his own version of “The Body Electric” called, “We Are All Whitman: #2: Song of/to/My/Your/Self”. The rhythmic enumeration of both of these poems is very similar, especially the repetitive ‘listing’ and song; but there are also some key differences.

While Whitman talks about parts of the body, Ambroggio’s ‘lists’ are that of actions rather than parts. An example of this in lines 10-14,

 “Child with the wisdom of questions,

offspring of poor and rich, of lettered and unlettered,

of rails, planting times, classes and cares,

which will sprout, embodied, with nothing forgotten,

seed in its newly bloodstained earth,-”

While here he is describing objects; ‘Child with wisdom of questions’, ‘offspring of poor and rich’, ‘lettered and unlettered’, he is also listing these things with as much fervent effort as Walt Whitman did in many of his lines, 

“Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears, 

Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,” 

And stanza 9, line 7 is just one example. But this isn’t the only thing both of these poems do. In “We Are All Whitman: #2: Song of/to/My/Your/Self”, while he is listing these objects, he gives the exact same cadence that Whitman’s does. Lets take a look at line’s 43-47 in Ambroggio’s poem.

“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,-”

Here he is explaining the areas of which he came from, in turn stating that these are the parts of his body; these of which being lyrics that he sings, that completes him as a human being. “-is Puerto Rican, Chicano, from Cuba free dancer of merengues, from Santo Domingo-” every pause or comma we see here is a new part of himself he lists in constant cadence, just like;

“Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition, 

Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,” (lines 9-10)

  this line in Whitman’s Poem, ‘Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition’; go up and down–much like a heart beat. ‘Of, the’, ‘and, the’ are syllables swoon down very quickly and then pick up right after the fall– ‘Nose, nostrils of the nose, partition’. Now looking at this, we can see the exact same method in previous lines of Ambroggio’s poem, “Santo Domingo and all the Caribbean, from El Salvador and Nicaragua.” Did you see that? ‘And, all’, and  ‘from, and’ are all typical falls that don’t have as much ‘oompf’ to their sound, and thus end up being picked up by very strong nouns, like ‘Santo Domingo, Caribbean, El Salvador.’ Carrying a beat much like a heart would, what with it having a constant rise and fall of cadence, just like Whitman’s poem.

And that is the true translation of Whitman in Ambroggio’s poem, is that they both have an upbeat, constant rhythm of syllables that don’t stop and in their own way move the body into ‘dance’. The most precise thing about Ambroggio’s poem though, isn’t that he lists off things as Whitman did; its the context behind it. Whitman indirectly was saying something about America, about it’s stubbornness and how we choose things our own way–but, so was Ambroggio. Allow me to transcribe a line found in the poem, 

“They will not manage to deny me or ignore me or declare me undocumented:

I am written in you, in all,-”

Here the poet is declaring he will not be undermined for his culture, for any culture as a matter of fact. Simply because his culture MAKES America; ‘I am written in you’ he states. When he is writing the descriptions of culture, the actions of people, and the culture that compiles him; he is also describing the metaphorical “body parts” that make up “America”;  much like Whitman does with his poem having body parts describe “the person”.