Classic poetry

Leaves of Grass

by Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman's continually revised collection celebrates the body, democracy, labor, nature, sexuality, death, and the vast multiplicity of American life. Long free-verse lines and catalogues allow the speaking self to expand until it seems to contain strangers, landscapes, and contradictory experiences at once. Later poems absorb the Civil War and the death of Abraham Lincoln into a vision of national grief and endurance. Expansive and provocative, this book suits readers who enjoy prophetic voices, formal experimentation, sensual imagery, and poetry ambitious enough to imagine one person's song as a chorus for a country.