The Promised Land Project: The Perfect Wave Project: Expanding on Walt Whitman's Poetic Vision

Turning Vision into Action....at least hypothetically

Strike up the music of the band
We're blazing a trail for the promised land
Heaven on earth is within you.

Through the writing of stories, poetry, essays, and a novel, I’ve creatively contended with the consumer culture and the problem of the ideal in the modern era. This preoccupation in time would lead to a vision of cultural transformation and where I believe our democratic society needs to go to truly progress beyond the modern era. Conceding my limited credibility, this blog provides a synthesis of recognized visionaries, poets, and writers with the objective of making a credible argument. Ultimately, it is a certain feeling the project strives to inspire and sustain on a certain level, making more vital use of poetry and the arts; consequently whether one agrees or not is less important than whether one senses it and feels it over time.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

The Perfect Wave Project: Expanding on Walt Whitman's Poetic Vision

The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
-- from Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric"

The peculiar circumstances of my life, I believe, have enabled a deep appreciation for Walt Whitman's poetic vision. Consequently I feel compelled to take up this vision, as I understand it, and promote it as well. Recognizing the limitations of poetry as art, and the written word in general, to induce cultural change, I've created another approach.

By drawing on the mythos and framing it poetically yet truthfully, and interjecting the arts, including poetry as art, we have a hypothetical basis for a spritual movement to address what may be a spiritual crisis in the modern democratic society. As we hope to maximize participation, we plan to make particular use of the communal, participatory arts.

Here I define spiritual crisis as narrow interests (including self-interest and "special interests") that threaten the integrity of the society as a whole. Recognizing the use of the term crisis depends on one's sense of urgency, and also recognizing the limits of our vision, we can act without sounding alarmist by making use of the term hypothetical. Furthermore, with no good measure of how successful we may or may not be, and fully expecting detractors, use of the term hypothetical can be deflective as we continue to act.