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The Complete Poems of Walt Whitman
An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.With the first publication of "Leaves of Grass" in 1855, Walt Whitman was solidified as an American poet of undeniable importance. The poems contained in that slim volume candidly spoke of politics, slavery, sexuality, consciousness, and the spiritual world. His content was as radical as his form; he utilized free verse unlike anyone before, creating a poetic tongue that was unique and personal yet universal and cosmic. Born in New York in 1819, Whitman came to represent the spirit of an American poet. Influenced heavily by early 19th century Transcendentalism, Whitman befriended Ralph Waldo Emerson who would help shape his literary voice and vision. This volume contains the complete poetic works of Walt Whitman. Through his poems 'Song of Myself', 'Sleepers', 'To A Stranger', 'The Sleepers', and 'I Sing the Body Electric' we see a poet of great range and endless influence, one who is a "poet of democracy". Whitman's legacy is strong, influencing the beat movement, and countless poets of today. His verse is as layered and textured as the American soil he wrote on, becoming an essential part of America's cultural heritage. This edition of his complete poems is sure to satisfy the curious reader as well as the scholar. Whitman's poems are as vital and resonant today as ever, proving to be timeless and permanent fixtures of literary history.
608 pages, Paperback
Published March 30, 1998
About the author
Walt Whitman
1,836 books5,500 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."
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 8, 2022
This was a total surprise, and much more enjoyable than I had imagined. I purchased this book in high school only to find its verse form felt distanced and myself uncertain of the task ahead - the challenge was of form as of meaning, not to mention having the perseverance needed to push through and move through an epic poetic narrative such as is Leaves of Grass. Opportunely, this year’s reading included several epic poetic narratives: Dante's The Divine Comedy, Goethe's Faust, Camoes' The Lusiads, and now Whitman's major (only?) poetic work. What shocked me was that these bards each took decades to write their great works; Whitman published six editions from his first in 1855 to the last in 1892, the year of his death. While the comparisons between Dante and Goethe are well-known, the connection between Camoes and Whitman may not be obvious; in all four there is 'vision', as well as 'voyage'. The Lusiads follows the voyages of Vasco da Gama around Africa, finding new lands and new peoples, celebrating the momentous new transport vehicle marking the progress of man; in particular, Whitman's poem Passage to India made me wonder just how well-read Whitman was. Both celebrate the nation coming into being, of the singularity of the people's contribution to the world in ideas and material forms, and celebrated a hero both plural (the people, a cosmos) and singular (the nation, the individual, the soul).
The construction of Leaves of Grass began in 1855 with 12 original poems (I read these first, to no real effect except that I now know the final published form is far superior) and grew exponentially to encompass 15 books, each comprising a dozen or more poems. The original poems have been spread from beginning to end, and seem to have become thematic nodes around which the book collections grew. The original 12 were: Song of Myself, I Sing the Body Electric, Song for the Answerer, A Song for Occupations, A Boston Ballad, Europe, There was a Child went Forth, Who Learns My Lesson Complete, The Sleepers, To Think of Time, Faces, and Great Are the Myths.
Some of the other wonderful poems are: Song of Myself (52), Salut Au Monde!, Proud Music of the Storm, Passage to India, A Song of the Rolling Earth, To a Common Prostitute, and Good-Bye My Fancy. Of course there is the classic O Captain, My Captain but in many ways this breaks from the freeform verse of Leaves of Grass. There is something that comes to be captivating in the sonorous play and ecstatic extensions of the poem. Its listing and descriptions of the land and its peoples, celebrates and elevates the message and tone. Whitman indeed seems critical of many aspects of America, though perhaps not enough so to the standards of today.
He was from Manhattan, as his poem Mannahatta does address. He also volunteered at hospitals in Washington, caring for the injured in war. He sang of freedom and liberty, at the time of the American Revolution and also of the Secession War. Yet he is a shining light and abundantly positive. This romanticism extends from ending 'the idea of caste' to gender equality as well. He often expresses equality between man and woman, celebrating both and professing (his) love to man and woman alike. Near the end, he comes to speak of Native peoples with the poems Yonnondio and Osceola addressing the pain of defeat. There was something odd to the earlier references to indigenous words, peoples and place-names as a verity of silence contrasted with the prominent exaltation of the (conquered) land.
There is a glossing over of history, and yet a history of the world is present herein. This listing of history to which the epic form is so enraptured lends itself to these simplifications of just how the world has come to be, and what we ought to make of it. The tone here is magnanimous and laudatory. This work sings, truly sings, the praises of liberty and freedom in the new experiment in the New World. There is something very modern in the language and verse, a personal appeal to the world. It exists in a world with other great poets, and truly deserves more merit for its literary achievement.
The construction of Leaves of Grass began in 1855 with 12 original poems (I read these first, to no real effect except that I now know the final published form is far superior) and grew exponentially to encompass 15 books, each comprising a dozen or more poems. The original poems have been spread from beginning to end, and seem to have become thematic nodes around which the book collections grew. The original 12 were: Song of Myself, I Sing the Body Electric, Song for the Answerer, A Song for Occupations, A Boston Ballad, Europe, There was a Child went Forth, Who Learns My Lesson Complete, The Sleepers, To Think of Time, Faces, and Great Are the Myths.
Some of the other wonderful poems are: Song of Myself (52), Salut Au Monde!, Proud Music of the Storm, Passage to India, A Song of the Rolling Earth, To a Common Prostitute, and Good-Bye My Fancy. Of course there is the classic O Captain, My Captain but in many ways this breaks from the freeform verse of Leaves of Grass. There is something that comes to be captivating in the sonorous play and ecstatic extensions of the poem. Its listing and descriptions of the land and its peoples, celebrates and elevates the message and tone. Whitman indeed seems critical of many aspects of America, though perhaps not enough so to the standards of today.
He was from Manhattan, as his poem Mannahatta does address. He also volunteered at hospitals in Washington, caring for the injured in war. He sang of freedom and liberty, at the time of the American Revolution and also of the Secession War. Yet he is a shining light and abundantly positive. This romanticism extends from ending 'the idea of caste' to gender equality as well. He often expresses equality between man and woman, celebrating both and professing (his) love to man and woman alike. Near the end, he comes to speak of Native peoples with the poems Yonnondio and Osceola addressing the pain of defeat. There was something odd to the earlier references to indigenous words, peoples and place-names as a verity of silence contrasted with the prominent exaltation of the (conquered) land.
There is a glossing over of history, and yet a history of the world is present herein. This listing of history to which the epic form is so enraptured lends itself to these simplifications of just how the world has come to be, and what we ought to make of it. The tone here is magnanimous and laudatory. This work sings, truly sings, the praises of liberty and freedom in the new experiment in the New World. There is something very modern in the language and verse, a personal appeal to the world. It exists in a world with other great poets, and truly deserves more merit for its literary achievement.
July 23, 2025
I couldn't say that I was expecting someone who looks like a charmant Santa and who entitles his lifework "Leaves of Grass" to write like a frothing, awe-inspiring, omniamatory Nietzsche. But that's the case with Whitman, and he exudes meteoritic glory.
While Whitman's techniques were relatively sparse—he was particularly fond of interminable lists and repetitions, apostrophes and depriving objects of transitive verbs—and while his poetry couldn't be said to be exactly meticulous (his lines are free and uneven), his attention to the great teeming variety of his subject matter's minutiae paint such vast poetic landscapes that, in my experience, they are well-nigh unrivalled. Think of da Vinci crossed with Brueghel the Elder. Combined with his rich observations of everyday life we have the ardour of a born-again and the metaphysical temerity of a pantheistic maniac. The result, at its best, like in the inimitable "Song of Myself", becomes for the reader a dangerous exercise in ecstatic gasping.
The more one reads Whitman's crazy spirited ebulliences, the more one begins to catch certain recurring themes and pet expressions. Whitman loves to include the entire cosmos within his poetic "I": he embraces both the good and ill, sometimes boastfully rises above them, sometimes transgresses in a very glaringly criminal manner, and sometimes retreats back to scorn all learning and progress in favour of a single blade of grass. He can tout the glories of peace-time, its golden harvests and urban bustle, and during wartime he denies people their sleep and indicates that things couldn't be different; one must fight as the war drums beat. His favourite adjectives appear to be "manly", "superb" and "electric", and when you combine these, you get a trinity of molten sex that forges ahead in the veins of his poetry, both animating and scorching it. Whitman is also extremely invested in his idea of Democracy and the (especially presidential) politics of his day, writing many a paean to his favourite leaders.
Unfortunately, the older he got, the more he seemed to run out of his ecstatic steam. His poetry got shorter and often a mere repetitious shadow of its former glories. His erstwhile vigorous apostrophes appear like running through the motions, and his extravagant questionings of all learning and all art become feeble and silly (just read My Canary Bird or Stronger Lessons to see if you agree). What is interesting about his later poetry though is how he reconciled his early effusions and all-embracing poetic philosophy with the cruel facts of aging: you can see that at times he grows even pessimistic, so afraid he is of dying. But I can't say I was a huge fan of this era (perhaps it's something I must revisit when I myself have aged).
Another Whitmanian weakness is that his repetitions grow overbearing. I personally love his style and his beautifully flowing lines, but after so many hundred pages, the magic does wear off a tad. Once you get the tenth half-baked shopping list of American states and O woman, O mans, it's difficult to be as invested as one was when hyperventilating to the empyreanic "Song of Myself".
Nonetheless, I am ever-so-glad I read Whitman, for the first half of "Leaves of Grass" was some of the best stuff (poetry or otherwise) I have read in a long time. This man was brimming with love (for himself, for his country and for others) and wasn't afraid to transfigure himself in the most preposterous terms in poesy. Walt Whitman is a true modern Pindar (though much, much better).
While Whitman's techniques were relatively sparse—he was particularly fond of interminable lists and repetitions, apostrophes and depriving objects of transitive verbs—and while his poetry couldn't be said to be exactly meticulous (his lines are free and uneven), his attention to the great teeming variety of his subject matter's minutiae paint such vast poetic landscapes that, in my experience, they are well-nigh unrivalled. Think of da Vinci crossed with Brueghel the Elder. Combined with his rich observations of everyday life we have the ardour of a born-again and the metaphysical temerity of a pantheistic maniac. The result, at its best, like in the inimitable "Song of Myself", becomes for the reader a dangerous exercise in ecstatic gasping.
The more one reads Whitman's crazy spirited ebulliences, the more one begins to catch certain recurring themes and pet expressions. Whitman loves to include the entire cosmos within his poetic "I": he embraces both the good and ill, sometimes boastfully rises above them, sometimes transgresses in a very glaringly criminal manner, and sometimes retreats back to scorn all learning and progress in favour of a single blade of grass. He can tout the glories of peace-time, its golden harvests and urban bustle, and during wartime he denies people their sleep and indicates that things couldn't be different; one must fight as the war drums beat. His favourite adjectives appear to be "manly", "superb" and "electric", and when you combine these, you get a trinity of molten sex that forges ahead in the veins of his poetry, both animating and scorching it. Whitman is also extremely invested in his idea of Democracy and the (especially presidential) politics of his day, writing many a paean to his favourite leaders.
Unfortunately, the older he got, the more he seemed to run out of his ecstatic steam. His poetry got shorter and often a mere repetitious shadow of its former glories. His erstwhile vigorous apostrophes appear like running through the motions, and his extravagant questionings of all learning and all art become feeble and silly (just read My Canary Bird or Stronger Lessons to see if you agree). What is interesting about his later poetry though is how he reconciled his early effusions and all-embracing poetic philosophy with the cruel facts of aging: you can see that at times he grows even pessimistic, so afraid he is of dying. But I can't say I was a huge fan of this era (perhaps it's something I must revisit when I myself have aged).
Another Whitmanian weakness is that his repetitions grow overbearing. I personally love his style and his beautifully flowing lines, but after so many hundred pages, the magic does wear off a tad. Once you get the tenth half-baked shopping list of American states and O woman, O mans, it's difficult to be as invested as one was when hyperventilating to the empyreanic "Song of Myself".
Nonetheless, I am ever-so-glad I read Whitman, for the first half of "Leaves of Grass" was some of the best stuff (poetry or otherwise) I have read in a long time. This man was brimming with love (for himself, for his country and for others) and wasn't afraid to transfigure himself in the most preposterous terms in poesy. Walt Whitman is a true modern Pindar (though much, much better).
February 23, 2026
Reading Leaves of Grass without context feels incomplete. Walt Whitman was a journalist, a Civil War hospital volunteer, a stroke survivor and a relentless reviser. The book shifts as he does.
He can be uneven. He can be excessively bombastic. But at his best, Whitman doesn’t just declare — he demands introspection. He forces you to wrestle with self, body, democracy and death whether you’re ready or not.
It’s a long journey. Sometimes exhausting. Ultimately worth it.
He can be uneven. He can be excessively bombastic. But at his best, Whitman doesn’t just declare — he demands introspection. He forces you to wrestle with self, body, democracy and death whether you’re ready or not.
It’s a long journey. Sometimes exhausting. Ultimately worth it.
March 4, 2026
Took me over 2 years to finish this. It was just like it's cover, mild, pretty (sometimes pretentious) and largely uninteresting. Sometimes it's best to leave authors to their best in a movie quote.
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