It's brazen of me to mention myself in the same paragraph with the great Walt Whitman, let alone in the same sentence, but I've discovered we have something in common. He devoted a large part of his writing life to rewriting Leaves of Grass, just as I’ve devoted a large part of mine to rewriting rewritten rewrites rewritten. Slim justification, I know, for sharing a sentence with him but, splashing about here in the shallows, I can’t help but take heart from glimpses of myself in the big boys. And Whitman isn’t my first—I’ve just as brazenly shared sentences with Ernest Hemingway, Leonard Cohen, E. B. White, and, as an artist, with Alex Colville. I'm working toward being brazenly mentioned, myself, in the same sentence with. Progress is slow.

rewritten rewrites rewritten