The first two editions of Leaves of Grass sold poorly, but the third edition enjoyed greater success (Martin, loc. This collection can be considered his life’s work he wrote the first edition in his thirties and was releasing revised editions up until his death in 1892. He wrote a collection of poems called Leaves of Grass. In his thirties, Whitman began seriously applying himself to writing poetry. He expressed these ideas many times in his poetry. He also admired working class people, feeling “a rapport with coach drivers and other workingmen” (Martin, loc. These were topics that were important to ordinary people, even if his ideas on these subjects were different from commonly held ones, and the fact that he wrote about them in first person made them even more meaningful. Subjects of Whitman’s poetry included slavery, race, religion, and sexuality. Not only did Walt Whitman use this new writing style in his poetry, he also wrote about subjects not usually addressed in American poetry during his lifetime. It often flitted from subject to subject, following no specific pattern, but seemingly fitting together.

His flowing free verse was more narrative than poetic at times. As stated by Martin in Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America’s First Bohemians, “Sometimes ‘I’ could be taken simply as Whitman, but this was an outlandishly fluid ‘I’ that switched in an eye blink from male to female and with the greatest of ease assumed various identities: a slave, a witch being burned at the stake, a cholera sufferer, a clock” (Loc. Walt Whitman was one of the first well-known poets to write free-verse poetry, and to use the universal “I”. Largely self-taught, he read constantly, familiarizing himself with the works of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and the Bible (Jeffares). At the age of twelve, Whitman began to work at printing firms and fell in love with the written word. He was the second son of Walter Whitman, a house-builder, and Louisa Van Velsor. Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, on Long Island, New York. Whitman was a free-thinker, as shown by his own words in the preface to Leaves of Grass. Walt Whitman was a printer, journalist, essayist, teacher, and one of America’s most important poets.

Masculine Beauty by Walt Whitman