14 h 15 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a poem could hold a whole crowd—and still speak directly to you?
In Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman brings poetry into streets, crowds and working lives. His long lines follow the sound of American speech rather than neat rhyme. Song of Myself turns one speaking voice into a gathering of people, while the body and the soul stand on equal ground.
I Hear America Singing gives workers a place in the poem, from the carpenter to the boatman. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry watches gulls, tides and passing crowds, reaching toward connection across time. The Calamus poems explore comradeship, while the Civil War brings wounded soldiers and poems for Lincoln into this wide, changing world.
What you’ll discover
- One voice, many lives Enter Song of Myself, where a single speaker makes room for a crowd.
- The body stands equal Meet poems that welcome flesh and desire instead of setting them beneath the soul.
- Every worker belongs Discover the mechanics, mothers and craftspeople who fill Whitman's poetry with ordinary lives.
- Across the river Watch gulls and tides in Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, where travel opens questions of connection.
- Lines for the ear Read slowly aloud and feel the long lines move with the rhythms of speech.
Who will love it
For readers who love big, open, talkative verse about people, cities and the body, and anyone drawn to poems about nature, identity, freedom and friendship.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- One book that grew with its poet
- The 1855 book breaks every rule
- Song of Myself turns one voice into a crowd
- The body and the soul stand equal
- America sings, and every worker is in the choir
- Calamus and the poetry of comradeship
- Crossing, connection and the reach of the soul
- The Civil War and the poems for Lincoln
- How to read it aloud and why it lasts
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- Audiobook
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- 15-minute summary
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- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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Leaves of Grass
by Walt Whitman · 1855
Whitman's voice reaches from grass and city streets to battlefield hospitals, making every person count.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Leaves of Grass is the one book of poems that Walt Whitman kept writing for nearly forty years. It first appeared in Brooklyn in July 1855, a thin volume of twelve poems with no author's name on the title page.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
One book that grew with its poet
Walt Whitman was born in 1819 on Long Island and grew up in Brooklyn. He left school young and worked as a printer's helper, a teacher and then a journalist. He wrote for and edited newspapers, including the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. He walked the streets, rode the omnibuses and crossed the East River on ferries, and all of that went into his poems later.
Leaves of Grass was never a single fixed text. The first edition of 1855 held twelve poems and a long prose preface. A second edition followed in 1856 with more poems. A third in 1860 swelled the book, and later editions came in 1867, 1871, 1881 and 1891. Each time Whitman added new work, cut some, changed titles and moved poems into new groups.
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What is Leaves of Grass about?
It is a collection of poems about the self, the body, nature, democracy, friendship, war and death. Whitman speaks as a common man in plain, flowing lines and tries to make every reader feel part of one shared human life.
Why did Whitman keep revising Leaves of Grass?
Whitman treated the book as the record of his whole life. He added poems, cut others and rearranged groups across several editions, from 1855 to the final one of 1891 and 1892, so it grew as he did.
What is Song of Myself about?
It is the long central poem of the book. A speaker celebrates himself and then widens out to take in all people, from workers to the enslaved, as well as grass, nature, the body, the soul and death.
The author
Walt Whitman
1819–1892 · American poet
Walt Whitman (1819–1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. He was born on Long Island, New York, and worked in printing and newspapers. He first published Leaves of Grass in 1855 and revised it throughout his life. He later lived in Camden, New Jersey, where he died.
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