![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() For the first half of his life, his literary ambitions lay in journalism and fiction, and he worked for several New York newspapers. One of nine children, several of whom were named for American presidents, he left school at 11 but continued to educate himself while he apprenticed as a printer. Whitman’s long road to poetic greatness seemed both unlikely and predestined. Profuse, amorous, and candidly grand, his “barbaric yawp” defies all boundaries and borders, reminding readers of the radical possibilities inherent in the democratic ideal. However, although Whitman is a figure of mythic stature and popular appeal, his work remains strikingly provocative. Critic Harold Bloom called Leaves of Grass part of the “secular scripture of the United States.” Schools, malls, and bridges are named for him, and in the past few years, Levi’s and Apple have used his words to sell jeans and iPads. His irreverence inspired the surrealists, the Beats, and the New York School. ![]() Widely considered the American father of free verse, Whitman has been celebrated by poets from Federico García Lorca and Pablo Neruda to Langston Hughes and Patricia Lockwood. Few poets have had such lasting impact as Walt Whitman. ![]()
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