Mark Doty. What Is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life

In What Is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life, Mark Doty explores his passionate engagement with the life, work, and ideas of the poet Doty regards as the most important influence on his own development. This is a familiar role for Whitman and one he has played for countless writers. However, the way Doty talks back to Whitman is distinctive in a number of ways: While many poets have cited Whitman as central to their creative growth, far fewer have claimed such a deeply personal influence as does Doty. Fewer still have described their personal and literary influences so as to be nearly indistinguishable. As a book-length biographical study, his book calls to mind another about Whitman written by a poet, Paul Zweig’s influential Walt Whitman: The Making of a Poet, but with an important distinction: while Zweig’s book is about how Whitman created himself, Doty’s book is about how Whitman created Doty. What makes this unusual is that for Doty his mentor’s poetry is rivaled or exceeded in importance by his influence’s biography. Part diary of the spirit, part sexual bildungsroman, part critical reflection, as much as any book on Whitman I can recall, Doty’s What Is the Grass takes to heart Whitman’s famous claim, “whoever touches this book touches a man.” As a book-length study by a major American poet, Doty’s book also calls to mind C. K. Williams’ 2010 volume, On Whitman. Doty, like Williams, is fascinated by the erotic, bodily aspects of Whitman’s poetry, but where Williams focuses on the musical qualities of Whitman’s language, Doty is more interested in his personal and literary representation. Williams hears Whitman better than does Doty, and his attention to the music of Whitman’s poetry is more revealing; however, Doty sees Whitman—sees him as a human being emerging from history—with far greater intensity of imagination and feeling. This personal retelling of Whitman’s biography (Doty does not claim to offer fresh discoveries) is threaded through with autobiography, and the threads merge in ways that vary between the fascinating and the personally revelatory. As a guide to Whitman’s life, Zweig is far superior, and as an analyzer of the poetry, I prefer WWQR Vol. 38 No. 2 (Fall 2020)