Walt Whitman
1819–1892 · American (Long Island/Brooklyn/Camden) · American Renaissance
Known for: Father of American poetry—Leaves of Grass, 'Song of Myself,' revolutionary free verse
Walt Whitman was a journalist, teacher, and self-published poet who reinvented himself at 36 with Leaves of Grass—a book so radical that Emerson hailed it as 'the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed.' He was large, bearded, and deliberately Bohemian.
He served as a wound-dresser in Civil War hospitals, tending thousands of injured soldiers with extraordinary compassion. He was almost certainly gay or bisexual—his 'Calamus' poems celebrate male love. He revised Leaves of Grass throughout his life, expanding it from 12 poems to nearly 400.
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