Whitman: The Mystic Poets

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) was born in West Hills, on Long Island, New York, and is regarded as the father of free verse in American poetry. His collection Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855 and revised across multiple editions through his lifetime, contains Song of Myself, I Sing the Body Electric, and When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, his elegy for Abraham Lincoln. He worked as a journalist, teacher, and government clerk, and volunteered as a nurse during the Civil War, an experience reflected in his collection Drum-Taps (1865). He died in Camden, New Jersey.