Motif Project Elaboration

So, I'm interested in exploring Whitman's inner landscape... I want to study the connection between his motifs to get a deeper sense of how he saw the world.  A poet illuminates a lot about him/herself and his/her mental map through the images he/she commonly uses, even when the poet is attempting to maintain separateness from his/her work.  In Whitman's case, where the work is so intimately connected to the poet himself, this exercise may be even more illuminating.  I'm hoping some real gems are hidden there in the motifs.

{Step One} The first thing I will do is go back to "Song of Myself" and make some of these connections in an analytical way.  I will write a detailed blog entry about how the motifs seem to be working together and what trends I see between all of them in the context of the poem.  This differs from the earlier motif blog entries because of the emphasis on looking across motifs.   {this piece requires further research and a deeper look at Song of Myself}

{Step Two} Once this is done, I hope to generate a digital collage depicting these motifs visually with a compositional emphasis on the relationship between the motifs.  Which motifs support the landscape? Which dominate? Which disrupt? Which submit? Etc.   I will post this collage on my blog.  {this piece requires development of ideas explored in previous step's research as well as technical know-how}

{Step Three} THEN I want to try an experiment: I'll write some poetry of my own in response to the digital collage.  The reason this appeals to me as an exercise is that it will allow me to be inspired by Whitman's motifs and inner landscape without being influenced by his intoxicating writing style.  I'm not interested in imitating his voice; I'm interested in engaging my own voice in a dialogue with the abstract part of his mind.  {this piece requires the application of all learned from the above steps and from the SFSU creative writing masters program}

{Step Four} Lastly, I will attempt to bring things full circle by writing another blog entry about the relationship between my poem and Song of Myself.  I hope there will be some interesting connections despite the various filters between them. {this piece requires yet another look at Song of Myself and honesty about my own writing; I will need to be able to see what I bring into my writing as well as what Walt brings so that I may see where they overlap and differ}

As a whole, my project is really one big exercise in switching between exploring Whitman through the mind and through the soul. The thing I love the most about poetry is that it is an art form that utilizes language -- a cognitive construct -- to access the pieces of life & experience & the universe that are not wholly accessible to the mind.  Poetry is, therefore, in a constant state of striving, of pushing through the tension between these realms to find that clearing of truth, those ah-ha moments when the body and soul and mind all understand the same thing at once.  I think Whitman is the perfect poet to explore in this way, for he was a fierce intellectual with a fierce soul-body connection, and his writing is concerned with reaching people on all of these levels.