Full Name: Mr. Walter Whitman Date of Birth: May 31, 1819 Place of Birth: West Hills, Long Island, New York, USA Died: March 26, 1892 Place of Death: Camden, New Jersey, USA Classification: Artists & Entertainers

Considered one of America’s finest poets, Walt Whitman was also a journalist and an essayist who wrote during America’s most transitional periods. His classic work, Leaves of Grass, was published nine different times before its current content took hold. Through his poems, Walt Whitman explores nature, sexuality, and even war.

Born into a family with both Dutch and English ancestry, young Walt was influenced by various cultures, including those of a budding nation. His father was a farm laborer who did not have much of an education. His mother bore several children on the land, but due to financial crises, the family ended up selling most of their property. They then moved to Brooklyn, where Walt’s father built houses for other laborers.

At the age of 12, Walt was interested in publishing and printing. He worked in Brooklyn and in the heart of New York City, where he became a journalist. By the young age of 23, he began editing daily newspapers in New York – a post that would not have come about had he not possessed a natural talent in the field. Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass at his own expense due to his inability to find a publisher. When Ralph Waldo Emerson caught a hold of it and praised the book, publishers started taking notice. Later, a Boston publisher published his prose but due to the Civil War, the company went bankrupt.

Walt Whitman suffered a minor stroke in the early 1870s due to the stress caused by what many call his own sexual uncertainty. Following the death of his mother, Whitman stayed with his brother in New Jersey.

During this time, Walt was always updating, reorganizing, and adding to Leaves of Grass. The author compares his semi-autobiographical account of nature, love, and war as a cathedral that is continuously being built – a masterpiece that could take several decades to master. With the ninth and most successful publication of his poetic verse, Walt Whitman gained immense popularity in Europe.

Whitman claimed that in his work, his goal was to capture the American spirit and show what an ideal nation America could be. His words are seen as something more than art or a book, but a collection of visionary verse.

• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Henry David Thoreau
• John Keats
• Oscar Wilde
• Thomas Carlyle