There are six editions of the book (nine, if you count different type-settings). Rather than publish several collections containing new poems, he revised and expanded this single volume, so that the first edition of 12 poems eventually became a thick book of close to 400 poems. Leaves of Grass was Whitman’s sole book of poetry. The reader is constantly being called to attention:Įarth of the slumbering and liquid trees!Įarth of departed sunset - earth of the mountains misty-topt!Įarth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!Įarth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!Įarth of the limpid grey of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!įar-swooping elbow’d earth - rich apple-blossom’d earth! However, Whitman is careful to break the pattern before it can become mere rhetoric. Words or phrases are often repeated at the beginning of a series of lines, building up a rhythmical pattern. Each seems to correspond with a single breath or a single gesture. The book’s long non-rhyming lines are reminiscent of bible verses. He even set about ten pages of the type himself. He took the opportunity of having the best compositors, the Rome brothers, typeset his poems, and he supervised the work closely, revising his poetry to fit the page. It is clear he thought of his book of poems, Leaves of Grass, as an experimental project. But Whitman’s daring originality seems more than a mere response to Emerson’s demands. In 1842 he listened to “The Poet”, a lecture in which philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson called for a national bard who could write about the US in all its diversity. We don’t know how or why Whitman began to invent his extraordinary poetry. Bart E/flickr, CC BY Whitman’s innovation

Walt Whitman’s tomb in Camden, New Jersey.

Whitman enjoyed this different culture, but never lost his horror of slave auctions. Luckily, an opportunity arose to work on a newspaper in New Orleans. Having had some success – a novel and newspaper pieces – he became chief editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, but lost this position when his opposition to the spread of slavery clashed with the views of the newspaper’s owner. He worked by turns in Manhattan and Brooklyn as a printer’s apprentice, a schoolteacher and a newspaper publisher, before resolving to become a writer. His formal education ended when he was 11. He was born in 1819 and grew up in and around Brooklyn, moving often as his family tried to make money from farming and real estate. Whitman’s life was interesting and varied. But the poetry many people now love won him notoriety before it won him fame. Celebrations will be especially joyful around his birthday on May 31 and in New York City, whose citizens were often depicted in his poems. This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Walt Whitman, America’s most admired poet.

Leaves of grass full text