Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitmanwas an American poet, essayist, and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth31 May 1819
CountryUnited States of America
Books are to be called for and supplied on the assumption that the process of reading is not a half-sleep, but in the highest sense an exercise, a gymnastic struggle; that the reader is to do something for himself.
But the people are ungrammatical, untidy, and their sins gaunt and ill-bred.
All music is is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments.
To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, every inch of space is a miracle, every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the same; every spear of grass-the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns them, all these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.
All truths wait in all things,/They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it
Camden was originally an accident, but I shall never be sorry I was left over in Camden. It has brought me blessed returns.
The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case, He turns his quid of tobacco, while his eyes blur with the manuscript.
Lo! body and soul!--this land! Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and The sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships; The varied and ample land,--the South And the North in the light--Ohio's shores, and flashing Missouri, And ever the far-spreading prairies, covered with grass and corn.
Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus! Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me.
Sure as the most certain sure .... plumb in the uprights, well entreated, braced in the beams, Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, I and this mystery we stand. Clear and sweet is my soul .... and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul, Lack one lacks both .... and the unseen is proved by the seen Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn. To elaborate is no avail .... Learned and unlearned feel that it is so.
O amazement of things-even the least particle!
My little notebooks were beginnings - they were the ground into which I dropped the seed... I would work in this way when I was out in the crowds, then put the stuff together at home.
Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gathered, it is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes of cannon and small arms!
Most works are most beautiful without ornament.