Whitman may not always be Mr. Happy, but Xe Sands makes us happy to listen to him.
Whitman. I mean come on…I haven’t done any Whitman yet?? Wait..what’s my inner voice saying – that I never thought I liked him?
Yeah, well heck with that nonsense.
I might not have appreciated Whitman back in my school years (*cough*prude*cough), but as I’ve gotten older, I feel as if I’ve finally lived enough, done enough, lost enough…well, really, loved enough to open to the emotion Whitman lays bare. You think Lawrence lays it all out there for you to see? Ha! Not so. Lawrence is conflicted, struggling, always struggling. Whitman, in contrast, is exuberant and completely bare. Oh, he’s not always Mr. Happy, but he IS always exuberant, bursting with life and living and aching to share it with you, the reader, his most intimate friend.
—originally posted at Going Public