Walt Whitman's Calamus poems are some of America's great gay literature, all the more remarkable for being written in 1859. I'm going to try reading and reacting to them over the next couple of months, maybe one a day? Hopefully a long thread to come.
Useful resources:
Calamus 11 "When I heard at the close of the day" is a sweet sonnet about the joy Whitman feels when a lover comes to visit. The heartache of absence, the pleasure of anticipation, and then the fulfillment in loving comfort.
My favorite part of the poem is
I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands
All those sibilants are so sexy! Also the ocean's movement evokes making love.
Calamus 1 "In paths untrodden" starts off slow for me. I don't have a lot of patience for transcendentalism. I like the turn to the more explicitly queer at the end, "manly attachment", "athletic love", and then
I proceed, for all who are, or have been, young men,
To tell the secret of my nights and days,
To celebrate the need of comrades.
There's a strong sense of the closet in this poem. And Whitman's promise to break free of it, at least in the safety of his writings.
(Also "to celebrate the need of comrades" is hot AF.)
I don't expect to like all the Calamus poems, and so I forgive myself for not understanding Calamus 2, "Scented herbage of my breast".
Partly it's just the language: even that first title line is hard for me to access. "Perfumed leaves of my heart", maybe? I am sure I could struggle through to extract more meaning but what I find after modest effort does not encourage more.
Favorite lines:
I will raise, with it, immortal reverberations through The States,
I will give an example to lovers, to take permanent shape and will through The States;
I would dearly love a queer close reading of these poems to follow along with. Internet searches are hit-or-miss: lots of people talk about these poems but I'm not finding anything detailed and consistent. I'm reduced to Cliffs Notes to at least get some basic gloss. ChatGPT is deceptive and not helpful, mostly repeating vague platitudes about how these are gay poems.
Phew, Calamus 3 "Whoever you are holding me now in hand" is exciting after the previous poem.
Ostensibly it's a poem about the poems, Whitman warning us his book will be hard to understand and may change us forever. But there's a second hornier reading. I don't think he's just talking about putting his book in your pocket:
Or if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,
Where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon your hip,
I am here for the queer Calamus. His hints at hidden meanings. And then this outright daddy-dom energy:
You would have to give up all else, I alone would expect to be your sole and exclusive standard,
Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting,
The whole past theory of your life and all conformity to the lives around you would have to be abandon’d,
It's a little bold for a first date! Or for a poet. But Whitman is not shy about his self-confidence.
Calamus 4 "These, I, singing in spring" doesn't speak to me. It's about gathering plants and giving them to the "spirits of friends, dead or alive". I guess it's a mood? But for some reason I can't stop thinking of Tom Bombadil.
There is a bit of queer content, identifying a lover as "him" and speaking of comrades. I like the idea of youths interchanging with each other!
O here I last saw him that tenderly loves me—and returns again, never to separate from me,
And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades—this Calamus-root shall
Interchange it, youths, with each other! Let none render it back!
This is the first poem that mentions the titular calamus. Every critic will tell you the name "Calamus" is meant to suggest male homoeroticism because the flower structure of the plant is so phallic. And sure, yes? But here Whitman references the root, not a particularly phallic structure. The roots can be used as herbal medicine and flavoring.
Calamus 5, States! Was not expecting an entreaty to the unity of America in an 1859 poem. Or for it to hit so hard here in 2025 MAGA America. Whitman is so optimistic and naïve, not to mention self-confident. (The poem unavoidably changes quite a bit in the 1867 version, edited after the Civil War.)
Sticking with my gay-centric reading of Calamus... I'll note the general eroticism, talking about American unity as "manly affection... with a kiss". But the really interesting part to me is this:
Affection shall solve every one of the problems of freedom,
Those who love each other shall be invincible
This echoes the defiance in some of my favorite queer rhetoric, the idea that our love is liberating. That fierce queer love can overcome all. This hope comes through most strongly in Pride parades where there's so much excitement and love in a crowd of fellow queers that we feel like we can accomplish anything.
Calamus 6: Not heaving from my ribbed breast only. It's not one of the better known of his poems, I think the negation of a list of vibes doesn't work very well rhetorically. Although I appreciate the hotness of "Not in husky pantings through clenched teeth"
The turn in the poem is
O adhesiveness! O pulse of my life!
Need I that you exist and show yourself
Adhesiveness is Whitman's term for male-male love, the main subject of Calamus. The awkward word adhesiveness comes from phrenology and broadly means friendship or camaraderie. (See also the sexual amativeness).
I understand Calamus to be gay poems but there's an argument that Whitman is talking about non-sexual expressions of male/male friendship and passion. To me the two are convolved. Whitman is promoting love between men in all forms, both sexual and not. He embraces the erotic along with the camaraderie. Both in his writing and, most likely, his life.
I am approaching Calamus as works of gay poetry, but not all of the 45 poems are very gay. There's an argument than an earlier unpublished 12 poem manuscript referred to as Live Oak, With Moss is the gay center of Calamus.
Here's a list of what the 12 Live Oak poems became in the Calamus publication
There's minor differences in the versions — there's a whole world of scholarship about Whitman's edits over his life — but I think they are mostly the same poems in the 1860 version of Leaves of Grass I am focused on.
Calamus 7: Of the terrible question of appearances. Slow start, a very dense and philosophical musing on existential doubts, the nature of reality and perception. Heady stuff but not what I am here for on this reading.
Happily the poem turns to manly love, and I have Thomas Frederiksen's interpretive reading to help me understand it. Whitman's doubts are building and then...
To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answered by my lovers, my dear friends;
He puts aside his dread and finds joy in holding his lover's hand, of being with him. This love doesn't answer all the Big Questions but it gives him the wisdom to stop worrying.
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.
Would that we all find such grace in quiet moments with a lover.
Calamus 8: Long I thought...
This is the first poem in Calamus we encounter from Live Oak and thus bears special examination as gay text.
It's an unusual text! He starts out talking about singing the songs of America, to be the orator of the New World. Whitman's grand program! Then he renounces it all for his lover.
I am indifferent to my own songs—I will go with him I love
That's a hell of a repudiation for the poet! Particularly one whose whole thing is about combining same sex affection with love for America. What's going on?
One possibility is it's just a moment of weakness, Whitman giving up poetry because (he says) his lover is jealous of him.
Another reading is in this commentary, that the whole poem is intentional self-parody. I don't think so myself but the claim is worth considering.
Either way, Whitman repudiated this poem itself. He removed it after the 1860 edition.
Calamus 9: Hours continuing long...
A heartbreaking poem of despair, Whitman contemplating a breakup with a lover. This poem is beautiful and poignant and speaks for itself clearly. I admire his bravery putting these words to the page.
Note this verse:
I wonder if other men ever have the like, out of the like feelings?
Is there even one other like me—distracted—his friend, his lover, lost to him?
There's two kinds of loneliness here. Whitman misses his lover. But also Whitman is thinking he is all alone, that there are no other men who have suffered like he is suffering. He is isolated from gay fraternity.
But then a turn at the end
Is he too as I am now? ... Does he see himself reflected in me?
Whitman inverts his despair, imagines that he could be solace for someone else who feels like him. His poetic mission.
After yearning to find gay content in these poems it's nice to read one that is so clear. Whitman struck it from later editions, perhaps it was too gay.
Calamus 10 You bards of ages hence!
Another intensely romantic and gay poem. Whitman veers from theme to theme quickly. He starts with his own arrogance about his legacy, then heralds himself "the tenderest lover". But then it takes a melancholy turn, contemplating loneliness, before returning to a sweet image of love.
...he sauntered the streets, curved with his arm the shoulder of his friend—while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.
I also like Whitman's embrace of multiple loves:
the measureless ocean of love within him—and freely poured it forth
... thinking of his dear friends, his lovers
I think the romance in this poem could speak to anyone. It speaks to me specifically as a gay man, I understand this to be Whitman talking about other men. But it doesn't need to be exclusively so.
Calamus 11 "When I heard at the close of the day"
Revisiting this for a second read, it is such a lovely poem. The universal joy anticipating a reunion with a lover. It's nice in the Calamus ordering, how it comes after his sad poems of separation.
Here's a lovely direct performance by David J Bauman and a spunky drag performance by Taylor Mac.
It's such a mature poem. I don't mean sexually explicit. But rather how gentle it is, heartfelt. I love the quotidian detail of an extra day of anticipation in the middle. And how the details of intimate contact are not prurient but simply comforting, loving.
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast—And that night I was happy.
Calamus 12 "Are you the new person drawn toward me"
What a turn from previous few love poems! Now Whitman is a drama queen about how unreliable she is:
Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover?
Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloyed satisfaction?
Do you suppose I am trusty and faithful?
Oh girlfriend is so deep and mysterious! At least that's the shallow reading, it's quite funny. But Whitman is usually serious, perhaps that's not his intent.
The online criticism I read talks about this being a philosophical poem about appearances vs. realities. And ties it to Hinduism, supported by Whitman's use of the word maya.
And I suppose this poem does have those meanings. But I can't get past how he's talking to the reader, imagining us as a potential lover, and challenging or warning us about his suitability. That's awfully personal!
This 1860 version is longer: he removes some of the best lines in later versions.
Calamus 13 "Calamus taste"
A celebration of nature in March, an entreaty to enjoy and nurture growth. Both botanical and metaphorical, our personal growth. Some lovely turns of phrase:
Gushes from the throats of birds
Frost-mellowed berries
But I'm here for the gay reading. The erotic is latent in all this burgeoning spring. But it's also more explicit. That first line "Calamus taste" sure is promising if we understand Calamus as a phallic symbol. Then there's the "pinks of love", the "young persons wandering out in the fields", the "love-buds".
It's not porny or anything but it's a little horny. The physical exuberance of springtime.
This poem got edited heavily down in later versions, and perhaps it needed it. But he eliminated one of my favorite lines, "I must change the strain". Gonna drop that in conversation next time I need to change the topic.
Calamus 14 Not heat flames up and consumes
A declaration of love, eroticism mixed with nature imagery. Something of a theme in Calamus! It didn't really grab me though, I think because so many of the lines start with negations and it distances me from the meaning.
The sexy line here:
the flames of me, consuming, burning for his love whom I love!
I also like the imagery of seeds wafted in the wind, then heading to "my Soul is borne through the open air".
This musical performance by the Erato Ensemble is a nice interpretation.
Calamus 15 O drops of me!
It's a remarkably morbid poem for Whitman, literally about blood dropping from wounds, corrupting his poetry.
stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody drops
But he turns this blood into a sort of virtue that infuses his poem, starting with an inversion. It's not "saturate yourself with the drops". Instead it's saturate them with yourself.
Saturate them with yourself, all ashamed and wet,
Glow upon all I have written or shall write, bleeding drops,
Let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops.
I can make a case for a queer reading of recognizing gay shame and overcoming it. To take the stigma of homosexuality and turn it into a virtue, "let it all be seen in your light".
But I think I may be out on a limb with that interpretation. Whitman's not typically a writer about shame. And I think "gay shame" doesn't apply well as a concept in the 1850s, that's a malady that comes with a backlash against modern gay identity.
Calamus 16 Who is now reading this?
A funny little poem, omitted in later editions. On the surface it's a challenge to the reader and a chance for Whitman to establish himself as self-aware. Claiming his own flaws.
But the text drips with some latent queer meaning
as if I do not secretly love strangers!
(O tenderly, a long time, and never avow it ;)
A secret love that you can never avow? Hello! At least it's tenderly and a long time.
This seems as good a time as any to link Whitman's Boys, a good recent piece considering Whitman as a queer man and what that means to us in current times. It's a nice overview of some queer theory and is even-handed.
Calamus 17 Of him I love day and night
A disturbing poem about death, the death of a lover, the death of a city, the death of the poet. And Whitman's own dismissal of death, or at least of memorializing it.
Reading this as someone who grew up in the 80s, I can only read this in reflection on the AIDS crisis. Of my own community's deaths.
And I found that every place was a burial-place,
The houses full of life were equally full of death
The poem doesn't offer any solace in this reading. It is just a marker of death and being exposed to so much death that we are inured to it.
Speaking of "Adhesiveness" in 1960 David Hockney made a painting titled Adhesiveness. Which arguably depicts Walt Whitman fucking David Hockney, the labels 23 23 and 4 8 being a basic numeric code. Along with We Two Boys Together Clinging these two early works are Hockney referencing Whitman and being explicit about being gay. More info in this article and this one.
Calamus 18 City of my walks and joys!
A celebration of Manhattan. I love Whitman's embrace of cities as being just as vital as nature unspoiled. It reflects the humanist aspect of his joy in the world, not a Thoreau-like rejection of civilization.
I also love that Whitman is writing about cruising the streets, making eye contact with potential lovers, celebrating offerings of love.
as I pass, O Manhattan! your frequent and swift flash of eyes offering me love
Offering me the response of my own—these repay me,
Lovers, continual lovers, only repay me.
Whitman punched up the first line in later editions, escalating to "City of orgies, walks and joys!"
Calamus 19 Mind you the timid models of the rest, the majority?
A declaration of intellectual independence and a celebration of brotherly love. Honestly this poem feels a little clumsy to me, I can see why Whitman struck the awkward introducing lines in later editions.
As always, looking for the gay content:
Yet comes one, a Manhattanese, and ever at parting, kisses me lightly on the lips with robust love.
And I, in the public room, or on the crossing of the street, or on the ship's deck, kiss him in return
We observe that salute of American comrades
But I can't in all honestly read this use of "kissing" as erotic. Here the public kissing and the "salute of comrades" makes me think it's more of a fraternal kiss.
Which doesn't exclude a romantic kiss as well, or an erotic one. What's so vital about Calamus is how Whitman blends masculine sexual love with the love of comrades. I think both meanings are latent in every poem.
Calamus 20 I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing
What a heartaching poem of loneliness and the need for the love of another! Just wonderful. I understand now why this poem is so popular, particularly as a gay poem. It is full of meaning and is quite clear about it.
I wondered how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone there, without its friend, its lover near—for I knew I could not
There's a more cerebral interpretation of this work, particularly if you understand "leaves" to mean "pages in my poetry book Leaves of Grass". Whitman talking about his own poetic inspiration from lovers.
Which well enough. But I'm more interested in Whitman's expressed need for "manly love". Which is clearly on his mind constantly:
my own dear friends ... I believe lately I think of little else than of them
Also Whitman's own eroticization of nature and himself. Here speaking of the tree,
its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself
Calamus 21 Music always round me
A celebration of life, the metaphor of music all around us if only you can hear it. The last line is what gives me pause, it suggests an interesting nuance of meaning.
I do not think the performers know themselves—But now I think I begin to know them.
I'm a little pressed to find a gay reading of this poem, it doesn't have the usual paeans to manly love. There is a pleasant exuberance and sensuality to it, "shuddering luciously" and all. But it's the beginning lines that really catch me:
Music always round me ... yet long untaught I did not hear,
But now the chorus I hear, and am elated,
It's like there's a secret world of pleasure that Whitman only recently has learned to enjoy himself. A feeling similar to the epiphany of coming out to oneself.
Calamus 22 Passing stranger!
An absolutely smoldering poem of unfulfilled desire from a casual encounter. It is delicious for its clear and direct explication of a very complicated emotion. The hottest line:
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass
The poem manages to capture three things in just ten lines.
Whitman is generously pan-gender but the text still feels queer-coded to me. Specifically in how the desire is kept secret: "I am not to speak to you... I am to wait". Combined with the street-cruising scenario (a theme in previous poems) and I can definitely relate to my gay experience.
Calamus 23 This moment as I sit alone
A promise of global unity, Whitman sharing his adulation for men in other countries.
I guess this is an antidote to Whitman's nationalism? His celebrations of America seem sweet and sincere but they are very American-centric. Here he's explicitly saying men of other lands can be just as wise, beautiful, or benevolent as American men. It seems unusual that he feels he has to say it explicitly.
As for the queer reading, his conclusion is
I know we should be brethren and lovers
There's that word, "lovers". It's so brash it's hard to understand. It seems uncharacteristically direct even understanding Whitman as a gay poet. Maybe this is some 19th century romantic language, mixing what feels very gay in with a more general celebration of brotherhood? Or maybe it is literally what it says, Whitman eroticizing international men.
Calamus 24 I hear it is charged against me
This poem feels just so typically Whitman, but lesser somehow. Not one of my favorites.
He says he is "charged that I seek to destroy institutions". Charged by whom, one wonders, is he really so important? He sort of denies this, or is ambivalent to it, and then gets to the queer part:
I will establish ... the institution of the dear love of comrades
And here we are again at the central queer question: just what does he mean by "dear love of comrades"? As I read these poems I'm increasingly thinking it's both things. Sure, it's brotherly love, adhesiveness, a sort of robust fraternity. But so much of his writing and life is homoerotic it has to also have that charge. It can be both.
I feel like I've heard that phrase "the institution of the dear love of comrades" repeated often.
Calamus 25 The prairie-grass dividing
Whitman's celebration of simple men, of men from "inland America", of those who are unimpressed by Presidents and Governors. It's a romantic sentiment but in 2025 also feels a little naïve or condescending.
But as always I'm here for the gay stuff. Which starts explicitly enough
[I] Demand the most copious and close companionship of men
Well OK then! Me too. Maybe you could read that in a non-sexual way but then Whitman gets lusty
[I demand] Those with a never-quell'd audacity—those with sweet and lusty flesh, clear of taint, choice and chary of its love-power
My goodness, is that hot! At least to start, it's a shame he tames it seeking out men "chary of love-power". At least he recognizes their love power! I'll take the taint, thank you.
Calamus 26 We two boys together clinging
This is one of the gayest of the Calamus poems, a fantasy of two men against the world, full of life and ardor. I should be all over this in my gay reading!
Instead I see a darker form of Americanism here. "Power enjoying ... Armed and fearless ... No law less than ourselves". It's classic American individualism fantasy, a repudiation of community and law. Armed, at that.
On top of that I trip over the "North and South" part every time I read this. In 1860 when this was published we were just steps away from a Civil War after 10+ years of enormous tension. I don't blame Whitman for wanting unity, his whole program in Leaves of Grass is American unity. All I can think is how there's no moral equivalence between the North and South. But Whitman wasn't an abolitionist and this poem reflects that.
Sorry for not reveling in the gay, maybe it's the ICE and California National Guard news affecting my reading today.
Calamus 27 O love!
Odd little poem. On the surface it's a celebration of reinvention, of metaphorically dying and leaving your corpse behind, "always living". I don't find it particularly compelling but it's a mood.
I can't honestly find a particularly gay reading here. Broadly speaking maybe, "coming out" is a kind of reinvention gay people do, leaving our old closeted persona dead and gone. I wouldn't argue Whitman is talking about that though.
One odd thing is the 1860 poem starts "O love!", but there's no love mentioned in the rest of the text. Whitman removed this line in later versions. So who or what is the love referring to?
Calamus 28 When I peruse the conquered fame of heroes
My surface reading is this is a celebration of the common man, perhaps soldiers, over the more famous generals and presidents. But this commentary encourages me to dig deeper.
First, to highlight the gay text...
the brotherhood of lovers ... Through youth, and through middle and old age, how unfaltering, how affectionate and faithful they were
Very homoromantic language! Male lovers who stay together through their whole lives, affectionate.
The last fillip here is Whitman's own stance: "pensive... filled with the bitterest envy". Whitman admires these lovers and envies them. That's a striking feeling to disclose!
Calamus 29 One flitting glimpse
What a sweet poem of quiet love. One of my favorites so far.
The setup is voyeuristic: we're spying on a bar full of men. And we see Whitman in a corner, and then
a youth who loves me, and whom I love, silently approaching, and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand
It astonishes me that these poems of clear homosexual love were published in 1860!
What's particularly nice is the contrast between the rowdy bar scene
drinking and oath and smutty jest
and the quiet intimacy of Whitman and his lover
we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word.
The expression of love here is universal. But it is a man writing about a man, in the company of men. And thus it is particularly mine.