Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. Largely self-educated, he worked as a printer, schoolteacher, and newspaper editor before publishing Leaves of Grass in 1855, a collection he expanded and revised throughout his life. Written in free verse, it addressed the body, democracy, nature, and the individual, and drew both admiration and censure. During the Civil War he volunteered in Washington military hospitals and later held government clerkships. A stroke in 1873 led him to settle in Camden, New Jersey, where he continued writing and revising until his death in 1892. His work influenced modern poetry worldwide.