“I am the poet of commonsense and of the demonstrable and of immortality;
And am not the poet of goodness only . . . . I do not decline to be the poet of wick-
edness also.”

Also: “I am the hounded slave” and “I am the mashed fireman” — basically, he takes on the voices of the voiceless.

So, I can accept this as a natural application of Whitman to a boy who sorely needs to remember the brighter points of light.

I have a book due out in March with a main character who quotes Whitman to fight anxiety and depression, so I guess I’m biased in favor of this comic!