Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman. Though the first edition was published in 1855, Whitman spent most of his professional life writing and re-writing Leaves of Grass, revising it multiple times until his death. This resulted in vastly different editions over four decades—the …

Considered by many to be the quintessential American poet, Walt Whitman (1819-92) exerted a profound influence on all the American poets who came after him. And it was with this inspired, oceanic medley, "Song of Myself" (which in the first editions of Leaves of Grass was still nameless), that this great poet first …