A Child Said, What is the Grass? ... / [Allen Crawford] ; [Walt Whitman]

Prints


FA.FFM23.4202
46 x 61 cm; 18" x 24"
circa 2014
Allen Crawford
Walt Whitman
A screen print, printed in blue, of Allen Crawford's handwritten text and illustration of lines 1-7 of section 6 of Walt Whitman's poem "Song of Myself": A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose? Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation. The print is illustrated with a figure of an infant, made up of wrapping blades of grass. This illustration is also used in Crawford's 2014 publication, "Whitman Illuminated: Song of Myself." CBA has one copy, this is copy 1, numbered and signed in pencil at the foot of the print: "45/150", "Allen Crawford."