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Sea Poems by Walt Whitman

by Walt'z Intrepid Sailors

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1.
On the beach at night alone, As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song, As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future. A vast similitude interlocks all, All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, All distances of place however wide, All distances of time, all inanimate forms, All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in different worlds, All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes, All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages, All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe, All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future, This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd, And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.
2.
The world below the brine, Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves, Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick tangle, openings, and pink turf, Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the play of light through the water, Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes, and the aliment of the swimmers, Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom, The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes, The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray, Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths, breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do, The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us who walk this sphere, The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.
3.
Aboard at a ship's helm, A young steersman steering with care. Through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing, An ocean-bell - O a warning bell, rock'd by the waves. O you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea-reefs ringing, Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place. For as on the alert O steersman, you mind the loud admonition, The bows turn, the freighted ship tacking speeds away under her gray sails, The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth speeds away gayly and safe. But O the ship, the immortal ship! O ship aboard the ship! Ship of the body, ship of the soul, voyaging, voyaging, voyaging.
4.
1 To-day a rude brief recitative, Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal, Of unnamed heroes in the ships - of waves spreading and spreading far as the eye can reach, Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing, And out of these a chant for the sailors of all nations, Fitful, like a surge. Of sea-captains young or old, and the mates, and of all intrepid sailors, Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise nor death dismay, Pick'd sparingly without noise by thee old ocean, chosen by thee, Thou sea that pickest and cullest the race in time, and unitest nations, Suckled by thee, old husky nurse, embodying thee, Indomitable, untamed as thee. (Ever the heroes on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing, Ever the stock preserv'd and never lost, though rare, enough for seed preserv'd.) 2 Flaunt out O sea your separate flags of nations! Flaunt out visible as ever the various ship-signals! But do you reserve especially for yourself and for the soul of man one flag above all the rest, A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man elate above death, Token of all brave captains and all intrepid sailors and mates, And all that went down doing their duty, Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains young or old, A pennant universal, subtly waving all time, o'er all brave sailors, All seas, all ships.
5.
In cabin'd ships at sea, The boundless blue on every side expanding, With whistling winds and music of the waves, the large imperious waves, Or some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine, Where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails, She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under many a star at night, By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read, In full rapport at last. Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts, Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said, The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet, We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion, The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables, The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm, The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here, And this is ocean's poem. Then falter not O book, fulfil your destiny, You not a reminiscence of the land alone, You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know not whither, yet ever full of faith, Consort to every ship that sails, sail you! Bear forth to them folded my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold it here in every leaf;) Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart the imperious waves, Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to every sea, This song for mariners and all their ships.

about

Walt’z Intrepid Sailors is a collaborative spoken word project that was put together for the Over_Seas conference, held at the School of Arts
& Humanities of the University of Lisbon from 3-5 July 2019. The main goal of the conference was to celebrate the 200th birthday of two iconic North-American writers, Herman Melville and Walt Whitman, and their relation to the sea. This CD, and the show that closed the conference, is our transatlantic birthday song to the latter.

PREFACE
Soon after I’d joined the Whitman team on the Over_Seas organizing committee, I happened to tune into a radio broadcast of a collaboration between Iggy Pop, Tarwater and alva noto: “Leaves of Grass”, a 2016 spoken-word Walt Whitman tribute album. In the spirit of Creative Writing, I was absolutely delighted to steal the idea.

As both an academic and songwriter, I wanted to start an arts practice that would allow me to merge musical arts and research while further actualizing students’ creative potential. Walt’z Intrepid Sailors grew out of a collaborative methodology designed for the conference. I invited 4 former Creative Writing students, all talented young musicians or artists, and asked each to choose a sea poem from Leaves of Grass, then illustrate the text (what I called a ‘moodboard’) with colors, drawings, words, suggested sounds or other allusions they wished to inspire me as musical facilitator.

I was thus prompted to produce certain sonic moods, guided by their interpretation of the poem. Once I’d created a first draft of electronic music for a collaborator, we then proceeded to work on it together, adapting it to their spoken word. António and Antónia, however, dived right in and recorded a stunning finished spoken-word song each – in their case, because their songs were too short for the concert we had in mind, I composed instrumental intros based on remixes of their tracks. My own piece was composed with the intention of having all sailors on deck at the end of the show, playing our instruments and singing the choral section together: a homage to Whitman’s choice of first-person plural in the italicized section. That’s how we chose to close the conference: reverberating Whitman’s voice electric as a single musical body, responding to his call to universal joy, “in full rapport at last”.

Bernardo Palmeirim ~ Lisbon, July 2019

credits

released July 5, 2019

POEMS
Poems by Walt Whitman, retrieved from
the 1891-2 edition @ whitmanarchive.org

MUSIC
All music composed, recorded and mixed by NOZ (Bernardo Palmeirim)
at home, following inspirational guidelines from the performers,
except: “On the Beach at Night Alone”, song by António Graça,
recorded and mixed by António at Great Dane Studios,
and remixed intro by Bernardo Palmeirim; and “The World below
the Brine”, song by Antónia Honrado, recorded and mixed by Antónia
in her bedroom, and remixed intro by Bernardo Palmeirim.

Mastered and produced by Bernardo Palmeirim.

COVER AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Luís Henriques

GRAPHIC DESIGN
Mariana Camacho

©Walt’z Intrepid Sailors 2019

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