Word Choices

In Julia Alvarez’s poem on “Sometimes the Words are So Close,” her earlier drafts of the poem went through a process that enhanced the overall making of the original poem. Looking at the first draft, Alvarez may have been perplexed as to what she wanted to write within the middle of the poem; scribbling out most of the lines and adding what seems like side notes on page 434. Furthermore, in her interview she mentions a poet named Robert Frost who is quoted saying, “Don’t borrow, steal!” In which Alvarez had taken a few lines from a poem called “Statue of Liberty” by Emma Lazarus, and another from Walt Whitman, “Leaves of Grass”. On Alvarez’s first draft on page 434, it was interesting that on the last line of her poem she knew exactly how she wanted to end the poem with, “Who touches this poem touches a woman.” That line is referring back to Whitman’s poem in which she described it as pretentious on page 436. Looking back at the first draft she only used Whitman’s line before even adding Lazarus’s line which is “Those of you lost and yearning to be free, who hear these words, take heart from me” (433). I thought this was tied to what she wanted to convey her message behind her poem; as Alvarez had referred to it in her interview, it is a testimony to basically having the final say. In addition, in the second draft on page 435, you can see that Alvarez decided to stay with the beginning of the poem after making changes, “Sometimes the words are so close I am” instead of using, “Sometimes poems are close that I am”. It was interesting that she was changing her word choices to enhance her poem, and as she had mentioned during her interview, “when you love something you read, you want to respond to it” which moving many of the words around was necessary in trying to sound as if the poem and the reader are communicating.

Celeste Tejeda-Menera

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. 

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

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

The Soul Translated Self

Luis Alberto Ambroggio’s We Are All Whitman: #2: Song of/to/My/Your/Self translates Walt Whitman’s I Sing the Body Electric by focusing on ethnicity, and how each Self in the world creates the whole identity of who we are as humans. 

Whitman focuses on how the anatomy of the body is constructed, using electricity galvanizing through the body into life. This is followed through how the poem is structured, the poem coursing through the body like electricity, “Mouth, tongue… ribs, belly… man-balls, man-root… the womb, the teats” (Whitman 7, 14-15, 24). The comma used in each line further dissects each area of the body, and there is a rhythmic pattern in the stressed, monosyllables that the poem itself holds a sharp sound that strikes like electricity to each part. The focus on the genitals are also affected and create a metaphor to “sexuality” that Waltman comments (22). Waltman expresses how this electricity gives life even to the soul, meaning that it isn’t the body itself but the innermost feelings such as the sexuality of a person that is affected by this electricity. The cacophony heard in those lines parallels the sound of this electricity, triumphantly expressing to the audience “these are the soul” (36). The anatomical pattern also shifts to actions performed by humans, “food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming” (26). A consonance can be heard between food and drink, with the “s” sound repeating among pulse, digestion, sweat, and sleep, and the suffix between walking and swimming. The cacophony continues to be heard, but this shift to human actions reflects how even human acts are a reflection of the soul itself, that movement is similarly powered by this cacophonic electricity. 

Ambroggio focuses not on the body, but on the ethnicity that defines the Self. Whitman’s poem that shifts around anatomy is changed from that of ethnicity in Ambroggio’s poem. His poem brims with diversity, filled with “multitudes” that constructs the poem as the “universal soul.” Ambroggio establishes this in his first stanza, “This Self – Hispanic, Latin, blond, black, olive-skinned, native and immigrant… was here with everyone” (Ambroggio 1-2, 4). The poem sets up its diversity, but the lines contain multitudes of assonances between the “a” and “o” sound and consonances between black and olive-skinned. The shifting between ethnicities returns later in the poem, “Contrasting to Whitman, Ambroggio includes the conflicts that the Self confronts, “This Self is Puerto Rican, Chicano, from Cuba free dancer of merengues, from Santo Domingo and all the Caribbean” (43-45). The cacophony parallels this loud expression of one’s identity, and the switch between different ethnicities can be seen translated from Whitman’s electrical course between different parts of the body. 

However, these identities become threatened “by propellers and shrapnel…” but ends positively, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself” (60, 118). The war-like imagery to me becomes reminiscent of the Israeli-Palestinian war, where the Self becomes threatened. But the conclusion of the poem, where the Self shall endure, is spoken in euphony that changes this cacophony of conflicts and various identities into an acceptance of the Self and everyone included. Thus, Ambroggio’s rhythmic enumeration can be seen from Whitman’s poem by its cacophony, consonances, and overall structure of poetry embodying the Self/soul.

Phillip Gallo

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

Rhythm and Sound

 Luis Alberto Ambroggio’s poem “We are All Whitman: #2: Song of/to/My/Your/Self.”  translates the rhythmic list of body parts in Whitman’s poem ‘I sing the Body Electric in three major aspects. The first is that like Whitman, Ambroggio wrote a lengthy, free-verse poem. Both poems don’t have a settled structure or form, nor are they concentrated on a strict rhyme scheme or meter. The second was both poems are intended to be read without taking long pauses. There are commas and a couple of periods added, however, for most, they are run-on sentences. An example would be, “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, nose, nostrils of the nose and the partition.” (Whitman, Stanza 9). From Ambroggio’s poem, his given structure is quite similar to Whitman’s, “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, -“ (Ambroggio, Stanza 5?) From what I noticed though; reading these sections, Whitman used more repetition than Ambroggio did, but both used their words to create a sense of rhythm.

This leads to the third major aspect of how Ambroggio’s poem translates the rhythmic enumeration of body parts in Whitman’s poem. Both poets bring up an emotional and physically sensual experience, and they do this by providing cacophony. By placing certain terms together, sound is formed. At first, it may not be perceived but alliteration is present making it easier for readers to catch, the “Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side. Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone.” (Whitman, Line 13). From pronouncing the “b” repeatedly while reading, a beat can be heard sounding close to a drum or a bass instrument. Ambraggio does the same approach in his poem, “Everyone, yesterday and again today; today and tomorrow; does not stop,-“ (Ambroggio, Stanza 1). The “t” sound can be made out. It sounds like a cymbal is lightly being tapped. Both poems are free verse, they have to be read without long pauses, and intentionally, literary devices, such as repetition, Alliteration, and cacophony are used to create a sense of rhythm and sound. Altogether, this demonstrates how Ambroggio’s “We Are All Whitman; Song of/ to/ My/Your/Self translates to the rhythmic enumeration of body parts in Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric.”

Citations: Ambroggio, Luis Alberto. “We Are All Whitman: #2: Song of/to/My/Your/Self…” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/150382/song-of-to-my-your-self. Accessed 31 Jan. 2024.

Claudia Dominguez