Every Atom | No. 109

Introduction to Every Atom by project curator Brian Clements

I cannot say when these few words first meant something to me. Maybe one of those mornings when the air was both too much and not enough. In two lines Whitman performs a type of jujitsu, the way his words transform—invert—a moment of existential despair. How quickly one can become not the object, but the agent, simply by changing one’s perspective. It meant something at those dark moments I’d occasionally (still) find myself in—it is beautiful and unreasonable and hopeful and true.