Leaves of Grass is Whitman's life-long book of poems, first issued in 1855 and reworked through several editions. It contains long, free-flowing poems that celebrate the self, the human body, nature, work, love and the young American nation. The best known is Song of Myself, in which a speaker claims kinship with every person and living thing. The book also includes poems of grief, travel, sex, death and democracy. Its unrhymed, rolling lines were radically new at the time, and it remains one of the most influential books of American poetry.
Quotes
I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul.