Walt Whitman US (1819 - 1892) Timeline Secular or Eclectic : Transcendentalist Poems by Walt Whitman Books - Links

Walt Whitman grew up in Brooklyn and Long Island. He trained as a printer starting at the age of twelve. He learned to love the written word and read all he could. In his late teens he became a teacher, then turned to journalism in his 20s, eventually moving to New Orleans as editor of a local newspaper. Having witnessed the cruelties of slavery in the South, he returned to Brooklyn as a confirmed abolitionist. Whitman self-published the first edition of what would come to be seen as his masterpiece, Leaves of Grass, in 1855, revising it several times in subsequent years. During the Civil War, Walt Whitman worked as a reporter and aided the wounded in local hospitals. Whitman struggled financially for many years, but with the successful publication of the 1882 edition of Leaves of Grass he finally began to earn enough money to purchase a house and live comfortably through his final years.

Poems by Walt Whitman

• A noiseless patient spider
• Grand is the Seen
• I think I could turn and live with animals
• O Captain! my Captain!
• O Me! O life!
• Pioneers! O Pioneers!
• [1] I celebrate myself, and sing myself (from Song of Myself)
• [2] Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes (from Song of Myself)
• [3] I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end (from Song of Myself)
• [4] Trippers and askers surround me (from Song of Myself)
• [5] I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you (from Song of Myself)
• [6] A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands (from Song of Myself)
• [7] Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born? (from Song of Myself)
• [8] The little one sleeps in its cradle (from Song of Myself)
• [9] The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready (from Song of Myself)
• [10] Alone far in the wilds and mountains I hunt (from Song of Myself)
• [17] These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me (from Song of Myself)
• [18] With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums (from Song of Myself)
• [20] Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude (from Song of Myself)
• [24] Walt Whitman, a cosmos, of Manhattan the son (from Song of Myself)
• [44] It is time to explain myself -- let us stand up (from Song of Myself)

Recommended Books: Walt Whitman

The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)	The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse	Song of Myself	Leaves of Grass	Dead Poets Society (DVD)

Related Links

The Walt Whitman Archive
http://www.whitmanarchive.org/
Every fan of Whitman should visit this site. Biography, images, manuscripts, even has images of Whitman's poems in his own handwriting.

Reminiscences of Walt Whitman by John Townsend Trowbridge
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/poetry/whitman/walt.htm
Originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1902, this article is a personal description of encounters with the "great grey poet."

Walt Whitman: Long Island's Great Grey Poet
http://www.liglobal.com/walt/default2.shtml
A site that promotes Long Island (Whitman's birthplace), with nice photos and a virtual walking tour of the places associated with his family and youth.

Bartleby: Leaves of Grass
http://www.bartleby.com/142/
Leaves of Grass on line.

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