Walt Whitman was a poet, journalist, author and humanist. He was born to a working class family on May 31, 1819 in Long Island, New York. He was part of the first generation of Americans born in the newly formed United States. His younger years were spent attending public school, until he reached the age of eleven, when he went to work as an office boy for a prominent Brooklyn law firm. The firm gave him a subscription to a library where his most meaningful education began. He frequented museums, read voraciously, and attended many lectures. He learned literature, geography, history, music, art and archeology, all while other budding writers and journalists were attending private institutions to gain their knowledge.

Whitman’s self-education paid off, as he went on to work as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk and a published poet. In the height of his life’s work, he published the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855. His intention was to relate to the common man with an American epic. He spent time throughout the rest of his life expanding upon it and revising it, until his death in March of 1892.

Through his life and after, Whitman's sexual orientation has always been in question. Never from his own lips nor written word would we know his true nature. He never married and is said to have had no children. As for alcohol, Whitman said he did not touch hard liquor until he was in his 30s, when he was said to have written a book, Franklin Evan, under the influence of gin. Whitman’s father was an alcoholic which led him to have mixed feelings about libations. 

Whitman’s love of poetry led him to produce Leaves of Grass which was highly acclaimed by some and was highly controversial to others. Many saying it was overtly sexual and deviant. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a flattering letter to Whitman praising the book and recommending it to friends. The first published edition in 1855 was followed by subsequent publishings: the 1856 edition with twenty new poems added; the 1860 edition with seventy new poems added; the 1867 edition with six new poems added; the 1871-72 edition with 120 new pages and 24 new poems added; the 1881-82 edition with 17 new poems; and the 1891-92 edition, his last and deathbed edition, had no new poems but had reached a staggering 400 poems altogether. In January of 1892, right before Whitman’s death, he wrote an announcement which the New York Herald published, it read:

“Walt Whitman wishes respectfully to notify the public that the book Leaves of Grass, which he has been working on at great intervals and partially issued for the past thirty-five or forty years, is now completed, so to call it, and he would like this new 1892 edition to absolutely supersede all previous ones. Faulty as it is, he decides it as by far his special and entire self-chosen poetic utterance.”

In the end, Leaves of Grass became a legendary poetry epic that gained Whitman the honorable title, “the Father of Free Verse.” Leaves of Grass was said to be a combination of the historic epic with the subjective focus of lyric poetry. The poems are focused on themes such as slavery, war, the spirit of the American, immigrants, love and sexuality. His poems are arranged in order to Whitman’s own sense of organization with no seeming continuity of one theme or another.

Some poems are more favored than others such as Song of Myself, which seems to show life from Whitman’s point of view, the joy he felt in nature and his gratitude for life’s blessings. His war poems are more downcast and sodden with unhappiness for the experiences of the soldier. There is much debate between scholars as to which poems are the most notable or important.

Although Walt Whitman’s life and his epic Leaves of Grass will always be shrouded by controversy and acclaim, it cannot be denied that he is the most important American poet of the 19^th century and truly “the Father of Free Verse.”

For additional resources on Walt Whitman and Leaves of Grass refer to the following sites:

• Walt Whitman’s Birthplace: Official birthplace of Walt Whitman. Includes pictures of the writer and samples of his poetry.
• Walt Whitman: A short biography, criticisms of his works and audio readings of some works.
• Quotations by Whitman: Twenty-nine quotations by the famous author on the subject of nature, failure, friendship and God.
• Poet at Work, Walt Whitman: Discover Whitman’s notebooks of the 1850s-1860s. Read essays on Whitman and about the conservation of his notebooks.
• The Development of Leaves of Grass: Explore the different printings and the adding of poems to each edition.