Walt Whitman is now accepted not only as one of the greatest American poets, but also as the figure that somehow made truly American poetry possible. He created a new line, breaking with existing American poetry that was primarily written within the forms and idioms inherited from England,even when the subject-matter was American. Whitman was a revolutionary poet. He wrote of the common landscape, of New York City and its inhabitants; he wrote frankly of himself, his body, his longings and desires;he wrote what he thought the American public should hear, and he reminded that public of its stated national aspirations. Above all, he did so in free verse, in an accommodating, inclusive poetic style that itself embodied the poetry's ideological determinations.

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Walt Whitman's verse gave the poetry of America a distinctive national voice, reflecting the unique vitality of the new nation,the vastness of the land and the emergence of a sometimes troubled consciousness, communicated in language and idiom regarded by many at the time as shocking. Whitman's poems are organic and free flowing, they fit into no previously defined genre and skilfully combine autobiographical, sociological and religious themes with lyrical sensuality. His verse is a fitting celebration of a new breed of American and includes Song of Myself, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, the celebratory Passage to India, and his fine elegy for the assassinated President Lincoln,When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard BIoom'd.

Leaves of Grass

INSCRIPTION

One's-Self I Sing (1867; 1871)

As I Ponder'd in Silence (1871; 1871)

In Cabin'd Ships at Sea (1871; 1881)

To Foreign Lands (1860; 1871)

To a Historian (1860; 1871)

To Thee Old Cause! (1871; 1881)

Eido10ns (1876; 1876)

For Him I Sing (1871; 1871)

When I Read the Book (1867; 1871)

Beginning My Studies (1867; 1871)

Beginners (1860; 1860)

To the States (1860; 1881)

On Journeys through the States (1860; 1871)

To a Certain Cantatrice (1860; 1871)

Me Imperturbe (1860; 1881)

Savantism (1860; 1860)

The Ship Starting (1865; 1881)

I HearAmerica Singing (1860; 1867)

What Place is Besieged? (1860; 1867)

Still though the One I Sing (1871; 1871)

Shut not Your Doors (1865; 1881)

Poets to Come (1860; 1867)

To You (1860, 1860)

ThOU Reader (1881; 1881)

  Starting from Paumanok (1860; 1881)

  Song of Myself (1855; 1881)

           CHILDREN OF ADAM

To the Garden the World (1860; 1867)

From Pent-up Aching Rivers (1860; 1881)

I Sing the Body Electric (1855; 1881)

A Woman WaitsforMe (1856; 1871)

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