The Meaning of Calamus As A Symbol
This cluster of poems contains a number of images and motifs that are repeated throughout. The most important is probably the Calamus root itself. Acorus calamus or Sweet Flag is a marsh-growing plant similar to a cat-tail. Whitman continues through this one of the central images of Leaves of Grass--Calamus is treated as a larger example of the grass that he writes of elsewhere. Some scholars have pointed out as reasons for Whitman's choice the phallic shape of what Whitman calls, "pink-tinged roots" of Calamus, its mythological association with failed male same-sex love and with writing (see Kalamos), and the allegedly mind-altering effects of the root. The root was chiefly chewed at the time as a breath-freshener and to relieve stomach complaints.
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