What is the Grass

<p>Mark Doty has always felt haunted by Walt Whitman&#146;s bold new American voice and by his equally radical claims about body and soul and what it means to be a self. In <i>What Is the Grass</i> Doty &#150; a poet a lover of men a New Yorker and an American &#150; keeps company with Whitman and his mutable landmark work <i>Leaves of Grass</i> tracing the resonances between his own experience and the legendary poet&#146;s life and work.<br><br><i>What is it then between us?</i> Whitman asks. Doty&#146;s answer is to explore spaces tied to Whitman&#146;s life and spaces where he finds the poet&#146;s ghost meditating on desire love and the mysterious wellsprings of the poet&#146;s enduring work. How does a voice survive death? <i>What Is the Grass</i> is a conversation across time and space a study of the astonishment one poet finds in the accomplishment of another and an attempt to grasp Whitman&#146;s deeply hopeful vision of humanity.</p>