The Listen & Be Heard Hour for Readers & Writers
s3e4, s3e5, February 27, 2025
In Perfect Silence at the Stars: Walt Whitman and the Meaning of Poems
“As Whitman averred, “there are millions of suns left”. And in that spirit, Nick Courtright avers, and irrefutably, that the meaning of Whitman’s project leans into futurity, into eternity. With In Perfect Silence at the Stars, the art of close-reading becomes a Vastation, an experience without limits. In the spirit of a practical idealism unique to America—the spirit of William James, Charles Ives, and Guy Davenport—Courtright has gifted Whitman with a further cosmos. This is an exhilarating book.”
