Every Atom | No. 123

Introduction to Every Atom by project curator Brian Clements

Whitman asks us whether we have truly considered vast swaths of earth, our (false?) pride at understanding what cannot really be understood—the deep mysteries of poems; the deep mysteries of grass, mud, crops, flowers, and trees; possibly even the mysteries of learning how to read. We remember perhaps sounding out words, the delight of reading our first sentence in a picture book, but what a beautiful moment it was when we also began the process the horizontal reading, of understanding metaphor and word associations. This passage has always seemed like a meta-question, Whitman asking, “Are you getting the meaning/mystery of MY poem?”