What do you think?
Rate this book
Leaves of Grass and Other Writings
This revised Norton Critical Edition contains the most complete and authoritative collection of Whitman's work available in a paperback student edition. The text of Leaves of Grass is again that of the indispensable "Reader's Comprehensive Edition," edited by Sculley Bradley and Harold W. Blodgett, which is accompanied by revised and expanded explanatory annotations. New to this edition is the full text of the celebrated 1855 first edition of Leaves of Grass, as well as generous excerpts from Whitman's two prose masterpieces, Democratic Vistas and Specimen Days.
Following the texts is an album of portraits of Whitman, as well as "Whitman on His Art," a collection of Whitman's statements about his role as a poet taken from his notebooks, letters, conversations, and newspaper articles.
While continuing to provide leading commentary on Whitman by major twentieth-century poets and critics, among them D. H. Lawrence, William Carlos Williams, and Randall Jarrell, this revised edition adds important commentary by Whitman contemporaries Henry David Thoreau, Fanny Fern, Henry James, and Oscar Wilde, among others. An entirely new section of recent criticism includes six essays--by David S. Reynolds, Karen Sanchez-Eppler, John Irwin, Allen Grossman, Betsy Erkkila, and Michael Moon--that reflect both the continuing historicist mainstream of Whitman literary interpretation and influential recent work in gender and sexuality studies.
The volume also includes a Chronology, a Selected Bibligraphy, and an Index of Titles.
976 pages, Paperback
First published July 4, 1855
56 people are currently reading
1260 people want to read
About the author
Walt Whitman
1,752 books5,333 followersWalter Whitman Jr. was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature. Whitman incorporated both transcendentalism and realism in his writings and is often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in his time, particularly his 1855 poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described by some as obscene for its overt sensuality.
Whitman was born in Huntington on Long Island, and lived in Brooklyn as a child and through much of his career. At the age of 11, he left formal schooling to go to work. He worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, was financed with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt to reach out to the common person with an American epic. Whitman continued expanding and revising Leaves of Grass until his death in 1892.
During the American Civil War, he went to Washington, D.C., and worked in hospitals caring for the wounded. His poetry often focused on both loss and healing. On the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, whom Whitman greatly admired, he authored two poems, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", and gave a series of lectures on Lincoln. After suffering a stroke towards the end of his life, Whitman moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. When he died at the age of 72, his funeral was a public event.
Whitman's influence on poetry remains strong. Art historian Mary Berenson wrote, "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him." Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America."
Whitman was born in Huntington on Long Island, and lived in Brooklyn as a child and through much of his career. At the age of 11, he left formal schooling to go to work. He worked as a journalist, a teacher, and a government clerk. Whitman's major poetry collection, Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855, was financed with his own money and became well known. The work was an attempt to reach out to the common person with an American epic. Whitman continued expanding and revising Leaves of Grass until his death in 1892.
During the American Civil War, he went to Washington, D.C., and worked in hospitals caring for the wounded. His poetry often focused on both loss and healing. On the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, whom Whitman greatly admired, he authored two poems, "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", and gave a series of lectures on Lincoln. After suffering a stroke towards the end of his life, Whitman moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. When he died at the age of 72, his funeral was a public event.
Whitman's influence on poetry remains strong. Art historian Mary Berenson wrote, "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him." Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
February 14, 2024
Very great poetry, best taken in small doses. He undoubtedly wrote these slowly over time, we know he made many edits. So I feel justified in reading it equally slowly, leaving it on my nightstand pile. Nothing better than poetry right before slipping into dreamland.
April 2, 2018
They are lines in Song Of Myself that almost feel alien, as though a human man from this planet could not have written such beautiful, generous, true, and altruistic words. Inspired by the greatest summits of the human possibility, without arrogance or pride and infused with humanism, the all-encompassing kind, Whitman's poetry is mystical to me, yet never remote.
He seems to have been given the key to Arcadia, that pastoral and wonderful secret place the Greeks dreamed about.
As a bisexual person, I have yet to read anything that embodies the essence of how I view my own bisexuality than here, in Song Of Myself where at one time Whitman sleeps peacefully in the arms of his male lover without ever diminshing the love he feels for the woman he holds in his heart.
Fluid, natural, without guilt but always accountable.
I love him so much. He is a gentle giant and a friend and father to us all who read him. :-)
He seems to have been given the key to Arcadia, that pastoral and wonderful secret place the Greeks dreamed about.
As a bisexual person, I have yet to read anything that embodies the essence of how I view my own bisexuality than here, in Song Of Myself where at one time Whitman sleeps peacefully in the arms of his male lover without ever diminshing the love he feels for the woman he holds in his heart.
Fluid, natural, without guilt but always accountable.
I love him so much. He is a gentle giant and a friend and father to us all who read him. :-)
September 28, 2017
Genius. The verse cannot be parsed in a single reading, but as you study the text Whitman's optimistic, sprawling, solipsistic vision of America sucks you in.
August 9, 2012
America is big. The land is big, the ideals are big, the ego is big, the dreams are big, even the people are big. Our suburbs sprawl out over acres and acres of territory, our massive houses given massive plots of land where other nations might fit two houses, our states the size of nations, our nation the size of a continent. Walt Whitman is the poet of this American bigness. He tries to contain it all, to pack all of these people, all of these dreams, and all this territory into his poetry. Is it any wonder that his lines runneth over, that each of his narrators is both Walt Whitman and you the reader and the embodiment of the nation packed with all personality traits good and bad, that one of his poems runs over fifty pages, that his only book of poems runs about five hundred pages, that there were six or more editions and it bustles with annexes, emendations, and editions? There just wouldn’t be enough space otherwise.
Yet as huge as the subject matter is, there is an extraordinary intimacy, physicality and unity to these poems. He did not just write of the universal, though that was his main theme. (displayed most effectively in the Calumnus section) Various books in Leaves of Grass successfully examine specific subject matter. Drum-Taps is a bellicose but grounded portrait of the Civil War. Whitman embraced the war to save the Union, and his poems about those events reflect both the terrible cost of the war and its terrible necessity. He also reflects movingly on mortality in On the Beach and Passage to India. Death was simply another voyage to him- he believed that the human soul could never die- but he reflected almost morbidly on death near the end of his life. Songs of Parting is a stirring farewell, and a vision of the future.
The best of these poems are magnificent flowing opuses. The lists and exhalations gain steam over the course of the poem, rambling through all of America in its bigness. One cannot help but admire how Whitman expanded his meter to reflect his expansive theme, how the confines of rhyme could not keep him shackled. The only reason why I didn’t love all of these poems is I think Whitman runs into a problem. How, when you write a set of poems about the universal, do you keep them from running together? Poems where the narrator is every person, where the narrator accepts all human characteristics, celebrates all professions, manifests all locations simultaneously and projects to the past and future are indeed dazzling. But once you’ve written a poem of the universal, you’ve written it. A poem that encompasses everything needs no sequel. At a certain point, Whitman is just repeating himself. There were just a few too many sections of Leaves of Grass that blended together, ran a bit too long, rambled a bit too much.
Nonetheless, what a remarkable set of poems- wide in its breadth, filled with inexhaustible optimism, accepting and tolerant of man and woman, sinner and saint, nature and city, faith and science, and all of the vast attributes of humanity. It seems to me that this must be the beginning of uniquely American literature.
Yet as huge as the subject matter is, there is an extraordinary intimacy, physicality and unity to these poems. He did not just write of the universal, though that was his main theme. (displayed most effectively in the Calumnus section) Various books in Leaves of Grass successfully examine specific subject matter. Drum-Taps is a bellicose but grounded portrait of the Civil War. Whitman embraced the war to save the Union, and his poems about those events reflect both the terrible cost of the war and its terrible necessity. He also reflects movingly on mortality in On the Beach and Passage to India. Death was simply another voyage to him- he believed that the human soul could never die- but he reflected almost morbidly on death near the end of his life. Songs of Parting is a stirring farewell, and a vision of the future.
The best of these poems are magnificent flowing opuses. The lists and exhalations gain steam over the course of the poem, rambling through all of America in its bigness. One cannot help but admire how Whitman expanded his meter to reflect his expansive theme, how the confines of rhyme could not keep him shackled. The only reason why I didn’t love all of these poems is I think Whitman runs into a problem. How, when you write a set of poems about the universal, do you keep them from running together? Poems where the narrator is every person, where the narrator accepts all human characteristics, celebrates all professions, manifests all locations simultaneously and projects to the past and future are indeed dazzling. But once you’ve written a poem of the universal, you’ve written it. A poem that encompasses everything needs no sequel. At a certain point, Whitman is just repeating himself. There were just a few too many sections of Leaves of Grass that blended together, ran a bit too long, rambled a bit too much.
Nonetheless, what a remarkable set of poems- wide in its breadth, filled with inexhaustible optimism, accepting and tolerant of man and woman, sinner and saint, nature and city, faith and science, and all of the vast attributes of humanity. It seems to me that this must be the beginning of uniquely American literature.
March 18, 2010
I read Leaves the first time when I was fifteen, back in '66 or '67. Probably read it again every few years since. Then kicked it up to once a year. Recently I've started taking it up several times a year, in different editions, along with the writings of others about Leaves. It was refreshing to read many of the comments and reviews here. A thrill to know this book is still being read by so many over one-hundred and fifty years later. Ed Folsum's article, "So Long! So Long! Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, and the Art of Longing" published in the Iowa Whitman Series volume "Walt Whitman, Where the Furture Becomes Present" has now incited me to locate the original edition of Hughes "Selected Poems" (thank goodness for interlibrary loans!) - where he begins with Whitman's finale: "So Long" -- and uses E. McKnight Kauffer's linotype in a reversal of Whitman's original 1855 front cover engraving of Schoff, with the image of a young African American. So all this to say, it's got me re-reading Langston Hughes work, and understanding the intertextuality between the two poets. I'm also glad my friend Mike Garrett got on Goodreads and wrote his review, so I could read his impressions.
April 25, 2007
This is my favorite poet of all time. I love how he speaks to you. Talking about how he wrote these poems for you and me makes me get chills everytime I read something of his. I have this edition and then recieved a beatiful edition at Christmas and tears came to eyes. Walt Whitman is not for everybody but he wishes he could be.
July 9, 2010
One of the great books of my life, and everyone's life. I come back to this one frequently. It is summertime, it is America, it is celebration.
March 31, 2025
Whitman wrote many terrible poems, and a few magnificent ones. It's hard to judge this book, since the bad outnumbers the good, but the good rank among my favourite poems ever written, so four stars it is.
I think most people getting into Whitman should opt for a slender volume or the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, many of whose lines are diminished in needless revisions Whitman made over the course of his life. For instance, the opening line of "Song of Myself" starts in the 1855 edition:
"I Celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."
Whitman changes this in later editions to:
"I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
and what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belong to me as good belongs to you."
The addition of "and sing myself" ruins the flow and the magnificent directness of the original, which feels like it's shaking you with strong arms to pay attention.
There are other revisions I don't like, and it comes as a reminder to be careful revising things that already work. There's a point after which revisions only hurt.
He also includes too many lists in his poems, which are honestly nauseating to read. Lists don't make good poems! Don't list things! Write one or two (or, if you must, three) magnificent examples and move on! Whole pages are devoted to listing everything he sees or wants to sum up around him, without any metaphor, contrast or insight, making them pages of no interest to anyone but historians or future archeologists trying to reconstruct lost eras.
That being said, the thing I like best about Whitman is his poetic vision, his point of view, which is large and all-encompassing. He doesn't sentimentalize or moralize, accepts the good and bad, the baffling strange totality and holiness of being.
I only wish he had an editor.
I think most people getting into Whitman should opt for a slender volume or the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass, many of whose lines are diminished in needless revisions Whitman made over the course of his life. For instance, the opening line of "Song of Myself" starts in the 1855 edition:
"I Celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."
Whitman changes this in later editions to:
"I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
and what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belong to me as good belongs to you."
The addition of "and sing myself" ruins the flow and the magnificent directness of the original, which feels like it's shaking you with strong arms to pay attention.
There are other revisions I don't like, and it comes as a reminder to be careful revising things that already work. There's a point after which revisions only hurt.
He also includes too many lists in his poems, which are honestly nauseating to read. Lists don't make good poems! Don't list things! Write one or two (or, if you must, three) magnificent examples and move on! Whole pages are devoted to listing everything he sees or wants to sum up around him, without any metaphor, contrast or insight, making them pages of no interest to anyone but historians or future archeologists trying to reconstruct lost eras.
That being said, the thing I like best about Whitman is his poetic vision, his point of view, which is large and all-encompassing. He doesn't sentimentalize or moralize, accepts the good and bad, the baffling strange totality and holiness of being.
I only wish he had an editor.
July 23, 2025
I first encountered Whitman, or at least a statue of him, at the Trailside Museum and Zoo in Bear Mountain, NY, while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail. I subsequently read Leaves of Grass and found inspiration, as a young man, in Whitman's ideals of one-ness and connectivity. Jump ahead 25 years. I just re-read this book, along with every jot and tittle of criticism and explanation in this Norton Critical Edition, and my middle age self is now in awe and saddened by Whitman's unabashed dealings with mortality, especially the Calamus poems.
Indeed, Whitman's poetry is apt for all ages. Song of Myself and Song of the Open Road are great for those "afoot, lighthearted, and free," and reading them again reminds me that such freedom exists, even within the strictures of society, something my 27 year old self failed to realize. Then, Leaves of Grass was an invitation to exclusion, to seclusion, and embracing the deeper and vivid truths of the natural world. Reading Leaves again now, at 52, I'm struck by Whitman's embrace of all of the messy soup and humdrum variety of society, and I see myself more clearly in the tapestry of society and culture. Whitman is inescapable. He's there on the mountaintop as well as the bustling agora.
Indeed, Whitman's poetry is apt for all ages. Song of Myself and Song of the Open Road are great for those "afoot, lighthearted, and free," and reading them again reminds me that such freedom exists, even within the strictures of society, something my 27 year old self failed to realize. Then, Leaves of Grass was an invitation to exclusion, to seclusion, and embracing the deeper and vivid truths of the natural world. Reading Leaves again now, at 52, I'm struck by Whitman's embrace of all of the messy soup and humdrum variety of society, and I see myself more clearly in the tapestry of society and culture. Whitman is inescapable. He's there on the mountaintop as well as the bustling agora.
January 19, 2025
Leaves of Grass is an indispensable work if you want to understand American Literature. It is Walt Whitman's magnum opus, and to my knowledge, his only major work he published. He actually re-published Leaves of Grass repeatedly over a period of 50 years. I picked up this Norton for the critical commentary as well as additional works contained within. "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a moving elegy to Abraham Lincoln, and was a primary reason I bought this later edition of the work. Ever-shifting poetry.
August 11, 2023
It is an old trope that war is "months of boredom punctuated by moments of extreme terror." The writings of Walt Whitman were, for me, also brutal—_many pages of boredom punctuated by the occasional terrific stanza._ Interestingly, Whitman's prose and his explanations of his writings felt much more deliberate and artful than his poems, which seems to speak to his perhaps gratingly enthusiastic altitude to poetry.
xx-dnf-skim-reference
December 23, 2021I would love to read this whole thing, had I energy enough (I could make time). But for now I'm simply trying to enhance my appreciation for the stand-alone Song of Myself that I read. The notes here helped a lot, but did not intrude interpretation... just right, iow. So, yes, I recommend the book to interested readers.
December 2021
December 2021
August 4, 2019
A vivid daydream among the trees and the whispers of leaves crushing beneath the sole of our feet ... To recapture what makes us truly human, an experience we too often bury under greet & selfishness!
February 5, 2020
No matter what is making me feel unsettled, this selection of poetry from the works of Whalt Whitman always brings comfort and somehow helps getting hold of my racing thoughts. The kind of poems book to read again and again and again...
July 23, 2020
Prepare for freeform, chaotic meandering. Whitman holds an odd but special place in my heart, so I would encourage reading this. Just be prepared for some intense energy that doesn't always connect between poems. Certain poems are absolute gems, though. Read in multiple sittings.
February 23, 2023
Happy Saturday, everyone! I have a "new" project! Reading poems and writing down those who hits home💖🌲🏚 I also change them a bit so they make more sense, cause damn those old dudes use weird words and frases😅 Next up is Oscar Wilde🙌
April 23, 2023
Not a huge fan of 19th century American poetry, but Whitman ranks at #1 in that category for me. For what it is, I couldn't have enjoyed it more. Put on the theatrics for a class reading of "O, Captain, My Captain!" and had never been so immersed in poetry.
July 28, 2024
This was the first work of poetry I've read in its entirety, and I loved it. Whitman is definitely my favorite poet now. Among other aspects that I enjoyed, I'm inspired by his deep love for the US and for his comrades.
August 24, 2018
I <3 WW
Read
December 29, 2019I KEEP SAYING I WILL READ THE CLASSICS SO I'M GOING TO FINALLY DO IT. WHAT SHOULD I START WITH?
THE HORNY POETRY OF WALT WHITMAN.
THE HORNY POETRY OF WALT WHITMAN.
April 2, 2020
It was very interesting with occasional personal stories from the 1800s. I would read this again and I’m interested in reading more from the same author or similar.
July 24, 2020
Excellent book on poetry
October 15, 2021
Read for class. Did not read the entire book, because it's just under a thousand pages, but the third or so of it that I did read, I liked for the most part, despite not being a fan of poetry.
November 13, 2021
wow , such sensitivity and lovely prose , so earthy and romantic
Read
November 19, 2021had to read this for uni (did not read every single poems bc there’s too many) but overall it wasn’t that bad. some very interesting insights in the poems ig
December 4, 2021
This is a Walt Whitman hate account
July 3, 2024
There's not much to be said after reading Walt Whitman. Exceptionally brilliant writing.
September 17, 2022
'Leaves of Grass' is an indispensable work if you want to understand American Literature. It is Walt Whitman's magnum opus, and to my knowledge, his only major work he published. He actually re-published 'Leaves of Grass' repeatedly over a period of 50 years. I have read the first edition of the book, but I picked up this Norton for the critical commentary as well as additional works contained within. "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a moving elegy to Abraham Lincoln, and was a primary reason I bought this later edition of the work.
*
"Song of Myself" is THE American poem - it is a poem that animates the Long 19th Century, and everything before and beyond it. It is about a speaker who has transcended the temporo-spatial limits of selfhood and has become posthuman - an embodiment of the American ideal that constitutes an ethical collapse of distinctions. The poem is a striking song to the American Dream, and also what Whitman believes the American Identity to constitute. His speaker perceives new things that are new even by today's standards. There is a part that compares the grass mentioned in the poem to uniform hieroglyphics: something that seems foreign and unknowable to us all, yet is there. Something that is universal to all people in America and present to them all, yet as various as the speaker's descriptions of what the grass may constitute. It could be representative of the boiling pot of America - something of difference going in like its people, becoming unified by their separate, yet now mutual under one nation, experiences.
*
"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a masterpiece of the elegy/threnody sub-genre in poetry, and a testament to Whitman's powers to raise a nation from its knees to find intense pride even at one of its Great Master's Death.
*
"I Sing the Body Electric" is an anthem for the joys of the body - in all its exuberance, beauty, shit-smelling foulness, and brilliance. It's an iconic Whitman poem, and helps define so many cultural and artistic things that have stemmed from it since.
*
"Brooklyn Ferry" is another poem that glorifies human connection - a top theme in Whitman's oeuvre.
*
Also worth it is "A Song of the Rolling Earth" - another of Whitman's "we're all connected and in love as God's children."
*
"Song of the Universal" is how universal consciousness emerges out of collective parts - another Whitmanian/American theme.
*
"Pioneers! O Pioneers!" is further Whitman commentary on Americans as sojourners and mould-breakers.
*
"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" is another ode to life, a theme Whitman does better than almost anyone.
*
"As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life" is one of his beauties about the interconnectedness of all things, and how the Self is not fragile in accepting this fact, but rather more whole by being built up from all precedents and surroundings.
*
"Song of Myself" is THE American poem - it is a poem that animates the Long 19th Century, and everything before and beyond it. It is about a speaker who has transcended the temporo-spatial limits of selfhood and has become posthuman - an embodiment of the American ideal that constitutes an ethical collapse of distinctions. The poem is a striking song to the American Dream, and also what Whitman believes the American Identity to constitute. His speaker perceives new things that are new even by today's standards. There is a part that compares the grass mentioned in the poem to uniform hieroglyphics: something that seems foreign and unknowable to us all, yet is there. Something that is universal to all people in America and present to them all, yet as various as the speaker's descriptions of what the grass may constitute. It could be representative of the boiling pot of America - something of difference going in like its people, becoming unified by their separate, yet now mutual under one nation, experiences.
*
"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" is a masterpiece of the elegy/threnody sub-genre in poetry, and a testament to Whitman's powers to raise a nation from its knees to find intense pride even at one of its Great Master's Death.
*
"I Sing the Body Electric" is an anthem for the joys of the body - in all its exuberance, beauty, shit-smelling foulness, and brilliance. It's an iconic Whitman poem, and helps define so many cultural and artistic things that have stemmed from it since.
*
"Brooklyn Ferry" is another poem that glorifies human connection - a top theme in Whitman's oeuvre.
*
Also worth it is "A Song of the Rolling Earth" - another of Whitman's "we're all connected and in love as God's children."
*
"Song of the Universal" is how universal consciousness emerges out of collective parts - another Whitmanian/American theme.
*
"Pioneers! O Pioneers!" is further Whitman commentary on Americans as sojourners and mould-breakers.
*
"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" is another ode to life, a theme Whitman does better than almost anyone.
*
"As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life" is one of his beauties about the interconnectedness of all things, and how the Self is not fragile in accepting this fact, but rather more whole by being built up from all precedents and surroundings.
August 23, 2025
This book captivated me for over a year, enough so that I read it twice.
But I jump ahead.
We all learn a little Whitman in school, usually high school, and usually safe and patriotic poems that make up much of his oeuvre. But he has more to offer than “O Captain! My Captain!”—dense, strange, edgy, and biting poems with hints of sex, death, and danger.
Strange? How about an ode to Kaiser Wilhelm the First of Germany? Or an ode to the steam locomotive? Or one about an ox-tamer? There are dozens of oddities, “A Noiseless Patient Spider,” for instance.
Whitman ruminates much on death, with an illustrious section of poems called “Whisper of Heavenly Death.” His final old-age poems are drenched in death and musings on the meaning of life. We didn’t read those in my high school.
Nor did we read any of his famous “Calamus” and “Children of Adam” sex themed poems. But that is just as well. I would not have known what to make of a poem such as “From Pent-up Aching Rivers” when I was seventeen. Today I do and I love them.
I did not expect to read the entire book; it’s 491 pages long with small type. I expected to dip in and out for a few days or a couple of weeks at most, then move on. But it grabbed me. I read slowly, almost daily, poem by poem, section by section. When I finished a section, I went back and read it again. That more than doubled my comprehension, and it increased my pleasure too.
About halfway through, I got the audiobook version also. From that point, I both read and listened to the book twice, which compounded my comprehension and pleasure yet again! The reader’s engrossing and melodic voice brought the poems to life even more than the voice in my head.
After fourteen months, I have finished the book, and with it I have gained a whole new appreciation for poetry. Towards the end, I was inspired to read a biography of Whitman and choose “Walt Whitman’s America” by David Reynolds. I recommend it. It is a biography of America from 1845 to 1892 in addition to being a biography of Whitman, and it is one of the finest biographies I’ve ever read, a page-turner even, yet deeply researched.
“Leaves of Grass” is one of those works of art that changes things, changed poetry forever, in much the same way that “Madame Bovary” changed the novel. The Norton Critical Edition, which I read, is an outstanding book and includes both the final 1892 “Leaves of Grass” and the original 1855 version, plus excellent notes and critical essays.
I am sad that I’ve finished, I feel at a loss.
But I jump ahead.
We all learn a little Whitman in school, usually high school, and usually safe and patriotic poems that make up much of his oeuvre. But he has more to offer than “O Captain! My Captain!”—dense, strange, edgy, and biting poems with hints of sex, death, and danger.
Strange? How about an ode to Kaiser Wilhelm the First of Germany? Or an ode to the steam locomotive? Or one about an ox-tamer? There are dozens of oddities, “A Noiseless Patient Spider,” for instance.
Whitman ruminates much on death, with an illustrious section of poems called “Whisper of Heavenly Death.” His final old-age poems are drenched in death and musings on the meaning of life. We didn’t read those in my high school.
Nor did we read any of his famous “Calamus” and “Children of Adam” sex themed poems. But that is just as well. I would not have known what to make of a poem such as “From Pent-up Aching Rivers” when I was seventeen. Today I do and I love them.
I did not expect to read the entire book; it’s 491 pages long with small type. I expected to dip in and out for a few days or a couple of weeks at most, then move on. But it grabbed me. I read slowly, almost daily, poem by poem, section by section. When I finished a section, I went back and read it again. That more than doubled my comprehension, and it increased my pleasure too.
About halfway through, I got the audiobook version also. From that point, I both read and listened to the book twice, which compounded my comprehension and pleasure yet again! The reader’s engrossing and melodic voice brought the poems to life even more than the voice in my head.
After fourteen months, I have finished the book, and with it I have gained a whole new appreciation for poetry. Towards the end, I was inspired to read a biography of Whitman and choose “Walt Whitman’s America” by David Reynolds. I recommend it. It is a biography of America from 1845 to 1892 in addition to being a biography of Whitman, and it is one of the finest biographies I’ve ever read, a page-turner even, yet deeply researched.
“Leaves of Grass” is one of those works of art that changes things, changed poetry forever, in much the same way that “Madame Bovary” changed the novel. The Norton Critical Edition, which I read, is an outstanding book and includes both the final 1892 “Leaves of Grass” and the original 1855 version, plus excellent notes and critical essays.
I am sad that I’ve finished, I feel at a loss.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews