The Open Road: Walt Whitman on Death and Dying
Edited by Joe Vest, approx. 110 pp. (unnumbered), Hardcover, $24.95, ISBN: 0-9636501-4-9, Four Corners Editions
As in living, so in dying. No one has lived more fully than Walt Whitman and in speaking of death he leads us with his openness, freedom, and sincerity. His verses inspire us to be poets, allow us to sit and feel the joy of life, the imagination overflowing.
Come to this book for spiritual refreshment or share it as a gift. Share Whitman’s songs, his wisdom.
The poems are illustrated by twenty duotone photographs that reflect the movement and mystery of life. Some of the century's most brilliant photographers are represented here, including W. Eugene Smith, Ernst Haas, Linda Conner, Henri Cartier-Bresson, William Garnett and Wynn Bullock. Their black and white imagery captures the stark contrasts, the gentle graying, and the paradox that is our life and death, (from liner notes).
The Open Road is set in a meditative format, without page numbers or a table of contents. One can open it anywhere. It is timeless, allowing deep reflection. If we could ever recommend a book for giving this would be it, and as it is most likely a limited edition we would not hesitate to purchase it. We close with a short verse from the book:
O Living Always, Always Dying
O living always, always dying! O the burials of me past and present, O me while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever; O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not, I am content:) O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look at where I cast them, To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind.
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