Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was an American poet, journalist and volunteer Civil War hospital visitor whose Leaves of Grass transformed English-language poetry. He developed a long-lined free verse that celebrated democracy, the body, labor, sexuality, comradeship and spiritual immanence. He revised Leaves of Grass throughout his life.
The Complete Poems of Walt Whitman gathers the evolving work of a poet who made the self expansive enough to contain a democracy. The center is Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855 and revised across multiple editions until Whitman's death.
