Author Archives: Roger W. Smith

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About Roger W. Smith

Roger W. Smith is a writer and independent scholar based in New York City. His experience includes freelance writing and editing, business writing, book reviewing, and the teaching of writing and literature as an adjunct professor at St. John’s University. Mr. Smith's interests include personal essays and opinion pieces; American and world literature; culture, especially books and reading; classical music; current issues that involve social, moral, and philosophical views; and experiences of daily living from a ground level perspective. Sites on WordPress hosted by Mr. Smith include: (1) rogersgleanings.com (a personal site comprised of essays on a wide range of topics) ; (2) rogers-rhetoric.com (covering principles and practices of writing); (3) roger-w-smiths-dreiser.site (devoted to the author Theodore Dreiser); and (4) pitirimsorokin.com (devoted to sociologist and social philosopher Pitirim A. Sorokin).

In Re Walt Whitman

 

‘In Re Walt Whitman’

front matter

 

Posted here (PDFs above):

In Re Walt Whitman: Edited By His Literary Executors, Horace L. Traubel, Richard Maurice Bucke, Thomas B. Harned (Philadelphia: David McKay, 1893)

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

 

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In Re Walt Whitman was originally published in a limited edition of one thousand copies. I own copy number 614 of the original edition. It was autographed by Horace Traubel.

 

 

post on immigration

 

 

photo by Roger W. Smith

 

I have reposted my post from June 2018 on immigration

immigration policy, Walt Whitman, and Donald Trump’s wall; or, the Berlin Wall redux

 

immigration policy, Walt Whitman, and Donald Trump’s wall; or, the Berlin Wall redux

 

It includes quotations on the subject from Whitman and Horace Traubel.

 

— Roger W. Smith

  May 26, 2025

Sculley Bradley, Introduction to Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden; Volume 4; January 21-April 7, 1889

 

Sculley Bradley, Introduction; With Walt Whitman in Camden, vol. 4

 

Posted here (PDF above):

Sculley Bradley

Introduction

Horace Traubel, With Walt Whitman in Camden; Volume 4; January 21-April 7, 1889

edited by Sculley Bradley

Southern Illinois University Press, 1959

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

  September 2024

Horace Traubel, Preface to with Walt Whitman in Camden

 

Horace Traubel, Preface; With Walt Whitman in Camden

 

Posted here (PDF above):

Horace Traubel

Preface to Walt Whitman in Camden, Volume 1, March 28-July 14, 1888 (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, Inc. 1961)

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

   September 2024

a glaring error

 

“The poet Walt Whitman, in Year of Meteors, described viewing the execution [of John Brown, abolitionist, on December 2, 1859 in Charles Town, Virginia.”

— Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)

 

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No, he most certainly didn’t.

The following are lines from Whitman’s poem “Year of Meteors:

I would sing how an old man, tall, with white hair,
mounted the scaffold in Virginia; (I was at hand—silent I stood, with teeth shut close—I
watch’d; I stood very near you, old man, when cool and indiffer-
ent, but trembling with age and your unheal’d
wounds, you mounted the scaffold;)

— Walt Whitman, Drum-Taps (1865)

Whitman used the first person singular, but he was not speaking from personal experience

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

  July 2024