Don’t know what to get the homophobes on your holiday gift list? A Walt Whitman t-shirt or sweatshirt is the perfectly subversive item! The homophobes will fake a smile and a thank you, and better yet, they’ll have a highbrow fashion item that says GAY!!! 365 days of the year.
Whitman, despite writing the verse “We Two Boys Together Clinging,” was bold for his day but would be considered closeted in ours. Queerty does not hold it against him though; the mid-19th century was no time for turning blades of grass into a skirt and dancing hula at a homo retreat on Kauai’s Na’Pali Coast.
Poetry lovers everywhere are, in any event, gearing up to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the original edition of Whitman’s “Blades.” Here you will find more Whitman-related gift ideas, including a Waltie Mousepad. The downside, of course, is that although Whitman was the Queerty type, he didn’t know diddly-squat about eyebrow grooming.
