Whitman: Poems

American poet essayist and journalist Walter Walt Whitman (1819–1892) was also a journalist. He was a humanist who participated in the shift from transcendentalism to realism by mixing both ideologies into his writing. Whitman who is frequently referred to as the founder of free poetry is one of the most influential poets in American literature. His writing was quite divisive at the time especially his collection of poems Leaves of Grass which was dubbed obscene for its overt sexuality. Whitman paid for the first printing of his most famous book Leaves of Grass in 1855. The project was an attempt to use an American epic to connect with the average person. Up until his passing in 1892 he kept adding to and changing it.