The Walt Whitman Reader: Selections from Leaves of Grass

by Walt Whitman

This handsome, unabridged edition of the great literary masterpiece makes this superb and original collection of poems available to everyone.

Genres: Poetry, Classics

Hardcover

First published March 1, 2000

About the author

Walter 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."

Reviews

[Cheryl]

I'm just reading a bit of supplementary material, just what I could find in my local library system, to enhance my appreciation of my read of Song of Myself. I read from here only the essays, which were interesting, if only mildly illuminating. November 2021.

[Adrianne Mathiowetz]

This isn't actually what I'm about to read: I have "The Portable Walt Whitman: The Eloquent Voice of a Tumultuous Land Ringing Out in His Leaves Of Grass and Prose Works: Democratic Vistas, Specimen Days, A Backward Glance" but this is the closest I could find on Goodreads -- my copy has no ISBN (but it does have a truly kickass cover with Whitman's beady old-man eyes on it, and the kind of font usually reserved for pulp fiction).

Two things already amusing to me:
1.) By "portable" they mean "698 pages".
2.) Some people here are actually giving Leaves of Grass 1, 2, and 3 star ratings. What? At least explain yourselves.

[Lauren G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't the actual edition I have but the closest I could find. my book has no ISBN that I can find. It's called Leaves of Grass: A Selection of the Poems and is illustrated by Mary Jane Gorton. I am definitely interested in picking up some more Walt Whitman after this as this is the first I have read!

[Lamar]

Everything. This work is the great poem of America that celebrated,
it just celebrated, and then after that, well it changed the way that poetry was written and the way that poetry was read.

[Patrick Lawrence O'Keeffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always loved this guy. He is a dirty old man like me, and he's not hesitant to write about it. Finished all the poems, but will keep going back to renew my humanity.

[John Ammer · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a book I read and reread.
New things seep into me from his words.

[Mike O'Malia · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Captain! My Captain!

[Cws]

JC-Whi