News at Eleven: But while somewhat predictable

in its conception, On Whitman is revelatory when it comes to explaining [Walt] Whitman's poetic gifts. With generous quotations from Leaves of Grass, [C.K.] Williams returns us to Whitman's music, his remarkable fusion of language and song. "Until the poem has found its verbal music," Williams writes, "it's merely verbal matter, information." Williams' keen ear helps us appreciate the "dance of vowels" in such phrases as "the blab of the pave" and "the clank of the shod horses on the granite floor."

"My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach," Whitman wrote in "Song of Myself," and Williams contends that it is the wondrous musicality of that voice that makes Whitman great.

from The Philadelphia Inquirer: Checking in with Walt Whitman

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