ABSTRACT
M alcolm Cowley, in his "Introduction" to Leaves of Grass,points out that the young Walt Whitman's conduct as a poet "resembled that of the Beat Generation. He stayed out of the rat race, he avoided the squares ... ; he was 'real gone,' he was 'far out'; and he was writing poems in ... the 'open,' freeswinging style that is prized in Beat Generation literature. Some of them should be read to loud music as a means of glossing over their faults and holding the listener's attention-not to the music of a jazz combo, like beatnik poetry, but perhaps to that of a regimental band."
