Power Shagging: Oscar and Walt's Bedtime Boogie--by Reb MacRath
Walt Whitman never had a chance. Older artists seldom do when slathered with praise by ambitious wannabes eager to trade sex for favors. Oscar Wilde sailed from London on 12/14/1881 and arrived in New York on 01/02/1882 at a high point in his career, not only famous but moneyed. In the next ten months he would cross and recross the U.S. to deliver 150 lectures heard by tens of thousands of Americans. All of this was according to plan. But so far one big piece hadn't fallen into place: he had to meet the old poet whose uncensored Leaves of Grass was known only in England to those who'd scored bootlegged copies. (The British 'comely edition' deleted half the contents of the American 1867 edition.) Upon receipt of an invitation to meet, Wilde raced from a Philadelphia lecture to his hero's place in Camden, New Jersey on 01/18/1882. ...