As part of my New Year’s resolution I have been reading one poem from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass every day.  This one resonated with me as an author and psychotherapist interested in themes of identity:

When I Read The Book

When I read the book, the biography famous,

And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man’s life?

And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?

(As if any man really knew aught of my life,

Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life,

Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections

I seek for my own use to trace out here.)