GajimaruClassics.
Leaves of GrassOn the coverAmong the Sierra Nevada, California, Albert Bierstadt, 1868
Leaves of Grass
A single, ever-expanding book of free-verse poems that sings the American self, the body, the crowd, and the cosmos in one barbaric, tender yawp. Whitman rewrote and enlarged it across his whole life.
No companion available yet.
The founding song of American poetry, expansive, sensual, democratic, and utterly new, still able to make a reader feel the whole world rushing in. Open it anywhere and be carried.
Setting19th-century America
A young, restless, expanding America on the eve of the Civil War, teeming with immigrants and possibility, hungry for a voice that sounded like itself rather than Europe.