The Complete Poems of Walt Whitman: Walt Whitman

With an Introduction and Bibliography by Stephen Matterson, Trinity College, Dublin.
Walt Whitman`s verse gave the poetry of America a distinctive national voice. It reflects the unique vitality of the new nation, the vastness of the land and the emergence of a sometimes troubled consciousness, communicated in language and idiom regarded by many at the time as shocking.
Whitman`s poems are organic and free flowing, fit into no previously defined genre and skilfully combine autobiographical, sociological and religious themes with lyrical sensuality. His verse is a fitting celebration of a new breed of American and includes `Song of Myself`, `Crossing Brooklyn Ferry`, the celebratory `Passage to India`, and his fine elegy for the assassinated President Lincoln, `When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom`d`.