Whitman covers the Civil War, Darwin, democracy, Shakespeare, Lincoln, friendship, Brooklyn, government work, birds, rivers, technology, politics and politicians, poets, and a multitude of other topics in this indispensable volume drawn from Specimen Days, Notes Left Over, Pieces in Early Youth, November Boughs, and other works.

The poetry of Walt Whitman is the cornerstone of modern American verse. He was America's first truly great poet and his influence is still evident today. The first edition of Whitman's Leaves of Grass, published in 1855, was a revolutionary manifesto declaring America's independence from European cultural domination. His rhapsodic free verse broke radically with poetic, tradition: it was poetry about America, its democracy, its people, and its hopes....

As he was turning forty, Walt Whitman wrote twelve poems in a small handmade book he entitled "Live Oak, With Moss." The poems were intensely private reflections on his attraction to and affection for other men. They were also Whitman's most adventurous explorations of the theme of same-sex love, composed decades before the word "homosexual" came into use. Whitman never published the cycle. Instead he cut them up, rearranged them, and hid them in...

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. Walt Whitman's Specimen Days, published in 1882, provides an extraordinary picture of an aging poet reassessing the path of his long life, one intrinsically linked with the trajectory-and traumas-of the nation he cherished so deeply. Its diary-like entries, is a prose compilation of a life lived richly and in the service of others, as well an enduring portrait of...

Collects a cross-section of Walt Whitman's literary works, including his poems, short stories, and prose, with all of the writings arranged chronologically.

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...

Tells the story of a boy's fascination with the heavens.