Specimen Days & Collect Book

This is a pretty dope book of Walt Whitman's prose -- a huge acknowledged influence on Keroauc's prose, he said, plus it includes a dramatization of Whitman walking in Boston Commons with Emerson, Emerson attacking Whitman's every poetic tactic, then Whitman responding that he appreciates and respects Emerson's words that march on him like an unstoppable army of artillery fire and truth and that he will do his damnedest (paraphrasing) NOT to follow Emerson's advice but to supremely exemplify every quality in his work Emerson rails against . . . pretty bad-ass, esp. for those maybe still reeling slightly from MFA criticism uncoilings.