Trilingual Reading of Song of Myself

Last night I was listening to this podcast by Los Angeles Public Library on readings and translations of Whitman's Song of Myself. Luis Alberto Ambroggio, Christopher Merrill and Sholeh Wolpé brought Whitman to life in Spanish, English and Persian respectively but what made the whole thing so enchanting and lively was Sahba Motallebi's Sitar music, complementing the narrations with such perfection and ease that even the languages I didn't understand carried a tune of their own, magnetic and mesmerizing in their intensity. Walt Whitman never sounded better than it did in these readings with Sholeh Wolpé's cool, soothing voice, and Luis's easy flowing narration. Sometimes I kind of forget how beautiful it is to witness art stretching over cultures, connecting them with the same thread and bringing them together in a moment of complete and unrestrained beauty- this intermixing of languages, of the lilts in differing voices all meaning the same thing, of music interlaced in them, of letting poetry wash over your weary self, of being undone and undone and undone and finally put back together...

 

 

 

"I celebrate myself, and sing myself, 

And what I assume you shall assume, 

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."

 

"And as to you Life I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, 

(No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)"

"I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, 

I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. 

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,   

If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles."

Full podcast here: https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/e-media/podcasts/aloud/song-myself-walt-whitman-other-words
(ps: the music at 26:00-28:01,  33:53-34:46,  45:52-48:22 is some kind of other-worldly magic and is guaranteed to leave you frozen with your mouth hanging open with wonder.)