Of physiology from top to toe I sing, Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far, One’s-self I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. Or, long, long hence, in other spheres, There to some group of mates the chants resuming, (Tallying Earth’s soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,) Ever with pleas’d smile I may keep on,Įver and ever yet the verses owning–as, first, I here and now Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name, Whitman is a classic American poet and I'm glad I finally took the time to read this seminal work.Such verses for my Body let us write, (for we are one,) That should I after return, My favorite of his poems will always be 'Song of the Open Road' and 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed.' I found a few more I really enjoy upon completion of this book though: 'A Clear Midnight,' 'Out of May's Shows Selected,' 'The Voice of the Rain,' and 'A Prairie Sunset.' I enjoyed seeing the evolution of his writing as his life progressed, especially since he kept adding on to Leaves of Grass every so often. Whitman will never be one of my favorite poets, but he certainly excelled at his craft.

But I've always thought that poetry was meant to be savored a little at a time.

He does tend to get repetitive after a while, so I certainly wasn't able to read this in one sitting. I'm just going to say it: Walt Whitman was the King of List Poems. Reading that one, plus Drum-Taps and Sequel to Drum-Taps (small poetry collections written during the Civil War and folded into later editions of Leaves of Grass), would have given me the background I needed for Voices in the Dead House, rather than trying to read the entire, huge final edition. Given that the book that inspired me to read Leaves of Grass was set in December 1862 and January 1863, what I *should* have read was the 1860-61 edition, the third of many, as Whitman constantly added, deleted, and edited poems from the original 1855 edition. More enjoyable for me were shorter poems like ' When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer,' “ Ethiopia Saluting the Colors,” and ' O Captain! My Captain!' It sometimes seemed like he was simply stringing together bunches of proper nouns or synonyms, rather than using imagery. Most of Walt Whitman's free verse poems are way too long, in my opinion. I tried to read this book of poetry because it was mentioned so frequently in Voices in the Dead House, a book I read and reviewed for the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.

Leaves of grass by walt whitman