On May 31 each year, the Hudson Valley Writers Guild co-sponsors a reading of “Song of Myself” to commemorate the birthday of Walt Whitman. Poets and other citizens gather at the Robert Burns statue in Washington Park in Albany — rain or shine — to celebrate the quintessential American poet with a reading of his poem “Song of Myself.” It is free and open to the public.
The event is a signature program of the Poetry Motel Foundation. In 2010, Capital Pride joined the HVWG as a co-sponsor.
Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, at West Hills, New York, near Huntington on Long Island. “Song of Myself,” composed of over 1,300 lines in 52 sections, first appeared in Whitman’s Leaves of Grass in 1855. The poem went through a number of revisions and changes until the 1881 edition of Leaves of Grass. Whitman died in 1892 in Camden, New Jersey. The theme of “Song of Myself,” as indeed it is of most of Whitman’s work, is the celebration of the individual, of the nation and of the spiritual possibility within us all.
The Robert Burns statue is located in Albany’s Washington Park along the park road that parallels Willett Street and the intersection of Hudson Avenue.
For more information, email Dan Wilcox.
Please visit our program page for a summary of HVWG activities.
