The Earthly Body: How Walt Whitman’s Calamus Creates a New Sense of Self

Walt Whitman’s poem cluster Calamus from the larger Leave of Grass, examines the ways in which we interact with ourselves and our environment, how these things influence and reflect upon one another. Calamus works as a sort of earthly self-reflection within Whitman’s larger body of works, keeping in line with his commonly explored themes of nature, identity, and the body in its many forms. Written around the 1860s, Whitman’s writing subverted expectations from readers and challenged typical ideas of love and personhood of the time. Poem 36, Earth! my likeness!, only exemplifies these ideas, as it presents the “self” as something metaphysical and deeply intertwined with the natural environment. Whitman uses the imagery within Earth! my likeness!, as well as the thematic placement of the poem itself in the cluster, to suggest that one’s identity is ever shifting and reflective; intimately tied to the environment an individual considers their natural environment. Whitman uses the imagery naturally occurring in his environment to de-gender the earth and self-identify with it, using his own identity as a queer man enamoured by the earth, to “queer” a traditional sense of masculinity and identity.

The symbolism behind the use of the Calamus plant as a title for this cluster of poems is significant itself, being central to the themes of masculinity, intimacy, and camaraderie. The Calamus plant is phallic in nature, being a cone sprouting erect from a bundle of leaves, and was used in traditional medicinal practices for treatment of pain. Whitman uses this as a symbol as the central image for his take on masculinity and affection, challenging traditional depictions of men as stoic and emotionally subdued within their relationships and self identity. Nature plays a crucial role in allowing Whitman to legitimize emotionally intimate relationships between men, providing a space where intimacy can exist outside of society’s expectations and norms. Within the natural environment masculinity is reimagined and aligned with a broader sense of queering identity throughout the poem, Earth! my likeness!

Earth! my likeness! is, at its core, about the act of queering one’s sense of identity through self-perception and identity construction based in nature. Queering identity, in this case, refers to something broader than sexuality and is more akin to a destabilization of boundaries in perception. The very first line, “Earth! my likeness!” (line 1) collapses the distinctions between the human body and the earthly body, exemplifying the destabilized nature of the narrator’s self-perception. Here, the self is not singular, it is multiple and expansive; encompassing the body, mind, and soul. These things are interconnected, woven together out of individual strands that work together to form a flexible, fluid definition of self. This fluidity allows the narrator’s sense of self to grow and expand, like any plant in nature, beyond the boundaries of the physical human body. The destabilization seen here can be further projected as a metaphor for Earth as a second kind of body or self.

Whitman develops this idea of queering a person’s sense of self by personifying the environment, and Earth as a whole, as something that grows and changes parallel to humans. The environment moves from a backdrop to a main character, intertwining itself with the narrator so wholly they become inextricable, forming a mirror for the self to be reflected upon and reimagined. The narrator describes the Earth as, “[having] something fierce in you, eligible to burst forth…” before connecting this thought back to himself, “[...] there is something fierce and terrible in me, eligible to burst forth…”. This furthers the idea that identity is something performed and projected, in this case, nature and the Earth itself is being projected on. The natural world reflects the narrator’s inner state, while also influencing and shaping it. This blurring of identity continues to destabilize the idea that identity is something fixed and confined to an individual, this narrative expresses identity as something that spreads well beyond the body and into the surrounding environment.

Earth! my likeness! also engages with the idea of a de-gendered or expansively gendered Earth, Whitman’s portrayal of nature resists fixed gender norms and instead presents the natural environment as encompassing a multitude of possibilities. Certain lines evoke imagery of pregnancy, “[...] you look so impassive, ample and spheric…”, though these images are not subjected to an inherently feminine identity as the narrator continues to use male pronouns for this earthly body. These images instead contribute to the destabilized version of gender and identity centered in Earth! my likeness!, adding another layer to the fluidity experienced by the narrator. By de-gendering the Earth Whitman creates a more universal framework for understanding identity, making the experience of the environment transcendent and widely applicable.

Despite its expansive visions, Earth! my likeness! is not unaware of the restrictions that societal norms have placed on us. The narrator describes something akin to an internal shame, or anxiety, “[...] fierce and terrible [...] eligible to burst forth…” that threatens both his self-perception and his relationships. Even in the place where he can be at his most open, in nature and surrounded by the music of it, the narrator cannot fully step into himself, “I dare not tell it in words– not even in these songs”. These lines reflect the very real fears that many queer people have faced, and still face, in reference to the social risks of embracing a non-normative identity. By expressing these anxieties, Whitman makes something productive out of fear, turning it into another facet of the narrator’s self reflection and sense of identity. Thus, Whitman’s own writing becomes a form of queering identity perception, further asserting the fluidity and flexibility of an individual’s sense of self through art.

This idea of Whitman’s work in Calamus as an act of queering is reinforced through the broader symbolism in the nature of his writing. The title of the book Leaves of Grass itself functions as a metaphor for both the “leaves” (pages) of the book and actual blades of grass. Whitman is focused on re-writing and redefining narratives in Leaves of Grass, cultivating his own form of the earthly body within his work, though this is a more physical interpretation. His poems grow from within him, rooted in his natural environment and act as an extension of himself given to readers, like leaves falling off of a tree. This works as another act of mirroring, extending the themes of expansive identity and nature as a second body/self in Earth! my likeness! The act of writing, for Whitman, becomes another way to examine the self and allow identity to be examined and reflected upon by others.

Overall, these elements work together to form a cohesive exploration of identity in nature that is both deeply rooted in personal experience and wildly universal. The Calamus cluster, particularly Earth! my likeness!, challenges audiences to re-examine the boundaries of the self, nature, the physical body, the role of environment in identity, and how intimacy involves itself in all of these areas. Whitman’s work ultimately suggests that identity is not something fixed and contained, but something expansive and far-reaching that anyone can connect to. Whitman “queers” traditional notions of masculinity, selfhood, and intimacy throughout his works in Calamus, relating identity back to the natural environment and working to create a broader idea of self. Earth! my likeness! functions within Calamus as another expansion in the ever widening landscape Whitman has created in the larger Leaves of Grass.