Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman, 1855
A big, boastful, tender American voice that talks directly to you across time, celebrating bodies, cities and ordinary people. Dip in anywhere and find yourself addressed.
Walt Whitman
1819–1892
Whitman wrote several anonymous, glowing reviews of his own first edition in 1855, and printed Emerson's private letter of praise in a newspaper without asking him.
Feels like joy, identity and wonder.
Two eagles fall through the air locked together, then part.
Skirting the river road, (my forenoon walk, my rest,) Skyward in air a sudden muffled sound, the dalliance of the eagles, The rushing amorous contact high in space together, The clinching interlocking claws, a living, fierce, gyrating wheel, Four beating wings, two beaks, a swirling mass tight grappling, In tumbling turning clustering loops, straight downward falling, Till o’er the river pois’d, the twain yet one, a moment’s lull, A motionless still balance in the air, then parting, talons loosing, Upward again on slow-firm pinions slanting, their separate diverse flight, She hers, he his, pursuing. Books by Walt Whitman
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