Houston’s Writers in Performance celebrates Walt’s birthday again this year with an appearance from Michael Robertson, the leading historian of the original Walt Whitman Fellowships in America and Britain.

Whitman’s actual birthday is May 31, but the event occurs on May 20. The two-part event begins at 3 p.m. at Lone Star College in Montgomery with a discussion of Whitman’s “cult-like” following as both writer and religious prophet led by Dr. Michael Robertson, author of “Worshipping Whitman: The Whitman Disciples.” (Note that the cliche “cult” is being used carelessly to describe the phenomenon, referring only to the small size and high passion of the movement. A genuine cult makes extravagant demands of its followers and penalizes members from leaving.)

For information, call Dave Parsons at (936) 524-6537.

 

Choreographer Judith Wombwell has a new production, currently playing in Boston, entitled Grass, inspired by Whitman’s beloved passage “What is the grass?”

 

In spring 2010 the National Humanities Center will host two interactive, online seminars featuring American Experience episodes, Walt Whitman’s Civil War Poetry and Hamilton’s America – Jefferson’s America. In Walt Whitman’s Civil War Poetry, Franny Nudleman, an English professor at Carleton University, will lead an exploration of how Whitman, an antislavery Democrat, incorporated incorporated “the real war” in his poems. Hamilton’s America – Jefferson’s America, led by Peter Onuf, a history professor at the University of Virginia, will examine the distinct visions Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson had for the new nation they were founding.

 

Fellow Whitmaniac Anne Marie MacPherson points that out that Gino Vannelli–yes, that Gino Vannelli–cut a New-York-jazzy ode entitled “Walter Whitman Where Are You.” It’s on his 1995 CD, Yonder Tree.