While researching my latest novella (which will released very soon, check out the cover – just finished this morning – at the bottom of this post), I read some of Walt Whitman’s work. His views on the human body, soul and nakedness are perfectly attuned to the ethos of my main character, who is a naturist and artist who connects with her muse through her connection with nature… and nakedness.

Never before did I get so close to Nature; never before did she come so close to me … Nature was naked, and I was also … Sweet, sane, still Nakedness in Nature!

A Sun-bathed Nakedness, Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman is often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial during his lifetime, and was described as obscene for its overt sensuality.

His poem Song of Myself contains many evocative phrases. I’ve pasted some of my favorites here…

You sea! I resign myself to you also—I guess what you mean,
I behold from the beach your crooked inviting fingers,
I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me,
We must have a turn together, I undress, hurry me out of sight of the land,
Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse,
Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning,
How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn’d over upon me,
And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart,
And reach’d till you felt my beard, and reach’d till you held my feet.

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue.

Press close bare-bosom’d night—press close magnetic nourishing night!
Night of south winds—night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night—mad naked summer night.

Smile O voluptuous cool-breath’d earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of departed sunset—earth of the mountains misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbow’d earth—rich apple-blossom’d earth!
Smile, for your lover comes.

If you’d like to read more. find the full poem, HERE

How could a writer not be inspired? Especially as my story is of a woman who needs a connection with nature to connect with her creative muse… Skyclad, the third Girls on Film novella, will be available very soon, in a fabulous romantic anthology… soon to be Revealed….