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Walt Whitman's This Compost Walt Whitman's This Compost, similar to most of his poetry, is written is free verse; therefore, instead of using rhyme and meter to create an underlying rhythm, he creates a rhythm with his gradual flow of thoughts and abundant use of repetition. Also similar to many of Whitman's poems, This Compost emphasizes nature, the physical body, sexuality, and the phenomenon of common, ordinary things. The poem is written in first person and is merely the thought process of the narrator as he reflects on self-proposed questions. The main question the narrator asks himself or more accurately proposes to nature is how the earth can create new, non-diseased life from the infectious waste that is put into it.
The overall meaning of the poem is also the answer to this question, but what is this answer, how is it related to the title of the poem, and how is it gradually revealed from stanza to stanza? The first stanza introduces the narrators love of nature as well as his first conception of the poems main question. He describes his love of the woods, pastures, and the sea; however, the very first line introduces the fact that he is forced to leave these woods because something has startled him. The wording of the first line implies that he is startled by something concrete such as an animal or disaster; however, it is later revealed that the narrator is startled by the idea that everything must be diseased because it was formed from particles that were once diseased. The narrator no longer feels confident in the purity and cleanliness of nature and thus no longer feels safe living in it.
In this first stanza Whitman uses the anaphora I will as well as the simile, I will not touch my flesh to the earth as to other flesh to renew me. Whitman uses these poetic devices to convey his love of nature by comparing nature to man itself. The second stanza is composed of five lines, each a rhetorical question centered on the poems main inquiry. The narrator asks why the ground itself cannot become ill like plants, animals, and people. He also asks how the ground can supply health to life on earth if it is constantly being filled with dead corpses and infectious waste. In this stanza Whitman utilizes metaphor as he refers to the ground being the blood of herbs, roots, and orchards.
Whitman also in a way personifies the ground by inquiring why it doesnt get sick, acknowledging the fact that it is possible that it could become ill, a trait reserved for living things such as humans. The third stanza begins with more questions as the narrator continues to sift through his thoughts and feelings about the purity of nature. By now the narrator wishes to know where all the dead corpses and piles of waste go after they are put into the ground. He is sure that he will stumble upon the foul meat of past generations when he pierces the sod with his spade, because if not, where else would it have gone or could it have gone for that matter. However, when he does run a furrow with his plow, he doesnt discover piles of dead corpses and mounds of waste; instead he sees a compost, the very title of the poem. But why does he see a compost?
What could this possibly mean? By now it seems the narrator has answered his own question, but not until later will this answer become evident to the reader. The narrator says he sees compost, or in other words a mixture of decaying organic matter. Instead of finding individually the objects that were once put into the ground, he finds them all mixed together. The narrator says, Perhaps every mite has once for part of a sick person; yet behold! / The grass of spring covers the prairies, / The bean bursts noiselessly through the mould in the garden. The narrator is acknowledging that yes, everything may have once been formed from part of a sick person, but that is not what he sees before him.
The rest of the third stanza is a list of the varying spawns of nature starting with the simplest of plants and gradually moving towards complex organisms such as colts and calves. With each item on his list, the narrator describes the miracles of life he sees before him but more importantly the annual rebirth of life itself. Whitman uses key words as well as complex imagery to subtly get this point across. By looking at his use of the words spring and resurrection, one can see the authors implication of annual rebirth and renewal. This is fairly obvious since spring is a universal symbol of rebirth because each spring all the plants start to sprout and grow again, and since the very definition of resurrection is to come back alive after previously being dead. The authors implication of annual rebirth is also implied through his allusion to another of his poems.
The narrator says, Out of its hill rises the yellow maize-stalk, the lilacs bloom in the dooryards. The lilacs the narrator refers to is most likely alluding to the poem When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Blood where the lilac once again is a symbol of rebirth. The fourth and fifth stanzas are the narrators final conclusions to his questions about nature. The narrator finally arrives at the decision that though everything may have once formed from the diseased, it is miraculously no longer that way. He concludes that some how within the earth all that was once decayed and sickly is rearranged to forever sprout new life of purity and cleanliness. What Chemistry! , the narrator says in the first line of the fourth stanza as he praises what must go on in the soil below to purify what was once filthy and contaminated.
The fourth stanza also shows Whitman's use of sexuality to convey his ideas. That it is safe to allow it [the sea] to lick my naked body all over with its tongues, . The fifth and final stanza puts the previously implied meaning into concrete words. It [the earth] grows such sweet things out of such corruptions. This line basically sums up everything Whitman is trying to say in this poem, and finally it is obvious that the title, This Compost, is symbolic of the earth itself, saying that the earth as a whole is one giant compost.
If one were to take a step back and look at This Compost from a distance, one would see that this poem is really just Whitman thinking and reflecting on nature. This poem is really nothing more than the thought process of the narrator as he asks himself questions and searches for the answers to those questions. This poem is written almost exactly like a person would think. As the poem scanned from stanza to stanza, the narrator gradually and slowly reaches a conclusion or realization just like a person thinking and reflecting to himself gradually finds his own conclusions. In addition, like the overall meaning of the poem, the meaning of the title is gradually revealed in the rhythm of Whitman's free verse, and the title that first seems very confusing slowly begins to make sense. This style of writing makes for a very thought provoking as well as enjoyable reading experience.
The meaning of the poem is not so obvious that it is known before even beginning, and the meaning is not so difficult that it can only be concluded well after finishing the poem. Rather, the meaning reveals it self gradually along the way providing the reader with a sense of and accomplishment and understanding. Bibliography: Allen, Gay Wilson. The Solitary Singer: A Critical Biography of Walt Whitman.
Rev. ed. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1985. Asselineau, Roger. The Evolution of Walt Whitman: The Creation of a Poet.
Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1960. Callow, Phillip. From Noon to Starry Night: A Life of Walt Whitman. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1992.
Kaplan, Justin. Walt Whitman: A Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980.
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