On Walt Whitman & Making Hopeful Art at a Time Like This

I’m thinking of someone. Guess who? They’re a trailblazing
artist. LGBTQ-adjacent. A Gemini from Long Island. An artist
trying to make sense of rapid technological change and political
division. No, not Lady Gaga. Not RuPaul. Not Frank Ocean. Think
older. Centuries older. Today we’re talking about the great
American poet, Walt Whitman.





Walt Whitman was born in 1819, but his world feels eerily
familiar. His New York was reeling from technological change and
caught in a web of political division. Sound familiar? In this
episode, we explore Whitman’s life—from his roots as a Brooklyn
typesetter to his rise as the great American poet. We’ll unpack
his most famous work, Leaves of Grass, and the ideas in it that
scandalized entire towns. We’ll talk about the beauty of
contradiction, the divinity of the mundane, and the radical
interconnectedness of all things. We’ll ask: what does it mean to
write about hope and unity at a Time Like This? If you’re
questioning how your art (or your heart) fits into a collapsing
society, this episode is for you.





EPISODE OUTLINE 





00:00 Intro 


02:56 Life Update: Tour! USA Today Bestseller! Bali?


05:32 Walt Whitman: a Long Island Gemini  


06:03 1800s NY: Nationalism, populism, manifest destiny


07:52 Sound familiar? 


09:02 Walt Whitman’s early life


10:11 Walt Whitman, the reluctant teacher


11:05 Walt Whitman, the starving artist 


12:27 Walt Whitman does a social media detox


13:00 Walt Whitman emerges with a first draft


13:14 Leaves of Grass: not like other girls 


14:00 1855 Walt Whitman is giving Woodstock 


14:14 Publication expert level: just like us 


14:44 Walt Whitman gets left on read   


14:48 Enter: Ralph Waldo Emerson


15:54 Walt Whitman is his own cheerleader 


17:47 Walt Whitman is as petty as the rest of us


18:22 Leaves of Grass starts to get legs 


18:41 Leaves of Grass gets smuttier 


18:57 Walt Whitman is not an angel 


21:02 The Civil War changes everything 


22:21 Leaves of Grass, an OG banned book


23:01 Walt Whitman’s legacy 


24:03 Walt Whitman quotes that will change your brain chemistry


24:18 1. “Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you”


25:07 My ego nap


25:59 2. “I am large, I contain multitudes” 


26:39 The categorification of the human experience


27:10 you are not a cottagecore coastal grandma clean girl mob
wife u are a spiritual being having a human experience  


28:48 3. “The smallest sprout shows there really is no death”


31:09 4. “Do you guess I have some intricate purpose?”  





EPISODE LINKS





• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman


• Stuff You Missed in History Class episode


• Comedy by Bo Burnham


• My Writer’s Digest article on writing about hope





MY LINKS





• MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now


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• Let’s hang on tour!!


⁠⁠⁠⁠• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Join me in Bali June 1-7!
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