Born On a Sunday, On Thursday I Had Me a Job

The poem initially carries on the same format of SOM as addressing the reader in a way that the poem is written for them. This mirrors the content of the poem in that it gives ultimate credit to all things, culturally existing, to "you."

The sum of all known value and respect I add up in you whoever you are.

I believe this to be an exploration of the ideas presented in SOM but a in a more specific way, addressing the actual constructions of society such as the Constitution, Congress etc. It also more explicitly states the value Whitman places in the nature of the self over the culture. While in SOM Whitman may express the joy of the nature of one's self such as sex: 

"Thruster holding me tight and that I hold tight!

We hurt each other as the bridegroom and the bride hurt each other."

In SFO, specifically states the same natural act's value over culture: 

"Will we rate our prudence and business so high?....I have no objection,

I rate them as high as the highest....but a child born of a woman and man I rate beyond all rate."

Now on to the revisions...

OH MAN. 

As the poem is revised, I believe Whitman tries to be even more explicit and direct with his message. This reminds me of our discussion in class maybe last week, that with each revision, Whitman's audience grew larger, so he had less control over their interpretations of the meaning. While poetry is meant, at least I feel, to be open ended and allow for multiple interpretations, Whitman seemed to want more control as seen in his revisions. 

Even from 1855-1856, we see more line breaks and punctuation changes, creating less ambiguity in the breath of the poem. And from 1856-1860, adding phrases that address the reader as ' Male and Female!’ and ‘American masses!’ and ‘Workmen and Workwoman!" On top of this he adds more occupations to the list [although later cuts a lot of them out but for the same reasoning I am about to give I believe] as well as more colloquial terms or terms emulating common dialect such as 'outlawed' to 'outlaw'd' or 'reckoned' to 'reckon'd them for, camerado?' With this, Whitman is really trying to rial up the American! Represent the common man! In their speech, in their identifications with their careers, etc. He wants to really make sure he is getting his point across that the average American really is accountable for the great state of the country. I believe this is his reasoning behind the admittance of certain political stanza's such as "The näive, the simple and hardy, he going to the 

         polls to vote, he who has a good time, and he 
         has who a bad time" 
and other stanzas that mention slavery, the mexican, the indian, etc. In a way, he is being less controversial in order to cause less strife amongst readers... in a way hiding the negatives, mistakes, problems of the country in order to create almost a false sense of unity for the reader. 

With the last three versions, well really two since there aren't any changes between the '82 and '92 versions, we see even more directness with the cutting out of the first 4 stanzas. With the opening of "a song for the occupations..." the reader receives the point right away, this poem is about me, is about my role and its importance, is about unity, blah blah blah. While this may be affective for Whitman's intentions of the poem, I feel as if it is not affective for the poem as a whole... In fact, I almost wouldn't call it a poem anymore, but a persuasive journalistic essay. Straight and to the point, with the most important information in the beginning and becoming less important the further one reads on. I want to see  beautiful imagery, the art of language and metaphor etc. But I suppose the benefit of all these revisions is that I have the option to relate or prefer one over the other.