The Complete Poems

In 1855 Walt Whitman published Leaves of Grass, the work which defined him as one of Americas most influential voices, and which he added to throughout his life. A collection of astonishing originality and intensity, it spoke of politics, sexual emancipation and what it meant to be an American. From the joyful Song of Myself and I Sing the Body Electric to the elegiac When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd, Whitmans art fuses oratory, journalism and song in a vivid celebration of humanity.This edition reprints the final, or death-bed, edition of Leaves of Grass (1891-2). Earlier versions of many poems are also given, including the 1855 Song of Myself. Whitmans early poems appear in an appendix, so that, apart from manuscript fragments found after his death, the present edition contains all Whitmans known work.