LIVE OAK, WITH MOSS
Walt Whitman’s secret same-sex love poems
Newly illustrated by Brian Selznick
With an afterword by Whitman scholar Karen Karbiener
As he was turning forty, Walt Whitman wrote twelve poems in a small handmade book he entitled “Live Oak, With Moss.” The poems were intensely private reflections on his attraction to and affection for other men. They were also Whitman’s most adventurous explorations of the theme of same-sex love, composed decades before the word “homosexual” came into use.
After writing “Live Oak, With Moss,” he cut up the poems, rearranged them, and hid them in the “Calamus” cluster of poems in the third edition of “Leaves of Grass.” This revolutionary, extraordinarily beautiful and passionate cluster of poems was never published by Whitman and has remained unknown to the general public—until now.
Brian Selznick befriended legendary children’s book illustrator, Maurice Sendak, who told him the story of Live Oak, With Moss, Whitman’s deeply personal love poems. Selznick created a puppet show inspired by these poems withoriginal music by Robert Een. The show debuted in 2009 at the Here Arts Center in New York City. Video of the performance can be seen, above.
One of the original poems from Live Oak, with Moss that Whitman had already begun to edit, and retitle in his personal journal.