Suddenly, I was bullyed by some classmate. She is a young, talented, inteligent english teacher of a public school. I was speaking about the influence of Shakespeare in Whitman. As the woman started to move her face in a negative way, the teacher Gillian Osborne asked me to explain my statement. Her face had changed. It looked like made of uncolourful marble. It took me a long time to take a deep breath and begin again. The entire class was waiting for an answer. The young, talented, inteligent english teacher was at the point to laugh out loud.
I spoke about the love of Whitman for the opera and the theather. I spoke about the way Robin Williams recites Whitman´s verses in a shakespearean style. I just forgot the name of the film. I also spoke about the way the poet used to carry something in his pockets. Those papers were not bills. Those papers were not pieces of the Daily Eagle. They were The Sonnets broken into pieces. He used to read them, like learning every verse at heart. Later on, the new yorker poet recognized it publicly.
I had noticed I was the only man in a group of wise women. They were looking at me. My voice was at the point to break down, my hands were sweating. In the end, I did not speak, but my pocket memory. In my own, trembling words, I quoted this sentence: “If I had not stood before those poems with uncover’d head, fully aware of their colossal grandeur and beauty of form and spirit, I could not have written ‘Leaves of Grass'” (Prose Works 2:721). Finally, Gillian Osborne smiled. The most pretty smile ever. After class, I went directly to the Irish Pub to drink beer until I fall drunk. Certainly, I am south american, my surname is not american or english, but I have been reading poetry all my life long. Poetry is poetry, regardless of the language in which its demons are invoked. The rest is literature.
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