YA New York

Okay, I usually wouldn’t do this to you. I really wouldn’t, but it’s important. As you may know, Paper Towns by John Green will be in stores soon (Oct. 16, to be specific). And you need to do a little pre-reading.

First of all, if you’ve never read John’s work before, I highly recommend An Abundance of Katherines, which is super freaking cheap on Amazon. $3.99. Seriously.

But more importantly, I’m going to ask you to read a rather long poem by a very famous man named Walt Whitman. This is the kind of stuff that, if you’ve not yet reached college, you will be reading in college. It’s hard work, and it’s honestly not my favorite thing in the world because I read the book under the tutelage of a college professor to whom I was allergic. Also because, while reading Leaves of Grass, I happened to be dating a guy I am now ninety percent sure was gay, and Walt Whitman was gay, and I felt like a magnet for gay guys.

ANYway, it actually is kind of a great idea to have a familiarity with this particular poem, Song of Myself, which luckily for you is old enough to be legally available free online. Bring up the page, print out the poem — it’s too long to read online — and be prepared for a bit of an intellectual struggle. You won’t regret it, especially because this particular work is sort of central to Paper Towns and also because it’s a Good Poem That You Should Read.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 8th, 2008 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Ephemera. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.