Leaves of Grass: First and \ by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass: First and \ Reviews

• 
  Michael

  This review is of 'Leaves of Grass: First and "Death-Bed" Editions,' which I read in its 900 page entirety despite my aversion to almost all of it. Don't get me wrong you can pick out a poem or two, put it in a Levi's commercial and make it seem like some pretty compelling stuff. I just don't find the kind of thinker that I deem worthy of my reading attention behind these words. Whitman is most certainly overrated and done so, I would venture to say, most certainly by people who haven't read him in any depth. I'm thinking of a kind of grad-school student who prefers to sound like he knows what he's talking about rather than knowing.
  
  I can look past such shameless self-promotion (writing glowing self-reviews under false names), legacy-management (a lifetime of revising mediocrity), etc. if the art that is produced under such conditions is up to an admirable standard. Bob Dylan comes to mind - a complete self obsessed egomaniac. But I could care less, for the art he has and is still giving the world is unique and powerful. I don't get this with Whitman. Instead of creating art he uses the form to expound a narrative in which he takes on Christ-like proportions, often directing the reader to his omnipresence, to his role as panacea.
  
  All of his so-called meditation on death is but a single-minded, blind appeal to his certainty of man's immortality - as if his repeating of this will make it true. He doesn't have a clue that man's belief in his own immortality is what lends him the justification to do all the disgusting things that he does, be it nothing but waiting sheepishly for heaven or overrunning the world by some divine right.
  
  I can understand being in awe of the polyphonic whirring wheels in the great rising machine that is the United States of the 19th century, but I can't stomach Whitman's certainty that this phenomenon is the hope of mankind. I don't think that it is asking too much to ask Whitman to foresee just what kind of corrupt and disgusting country his is on its way of becoming. He reports much of the same degeneracy that is so consistently at work today, but, like most of his subject matter, Whitman looks past it toward his ideal.
  
  His use of absolutes is nauseating. According to Whitman, the union armed forces are the greatest in the history of the world; the progress of his fellow man and his country is undeniable; it is something beautiful, something to believe in and participate in. He even disgustingly celebrates man's ability and right to raze redwood trees.
  
  Many will argue that Whitman is an important figure in the human rights movement but I can't help seeing much of his incitement as another outlet for his repressed homosexuality. Like his glorifying of war seemingly just to go on about the handsomeness of every generic soldier, he seems to be more interested in giving the male slave a bath than his rightful freedom. Even his celebration of homosexual love is patterned in an uncourageous formula whereby he writes a sentence on the beauty of women and then 5 or so on the beauty of men. I don't mean to argue that he doesn't have a role in this movement. I'm saying what we're getting is biography and history rather than poetry.
  
  If you've ever mindlessly chanted, "U.S.A. U.S.A." or you're interested in the gay experience circa 1860, if you believe that the progress of man is a holy endeavor and the means to utopia, if you worship those who tell you they should be worshiped, read this book. If not, do your part in recognizing literature that is obsolete; it just may save someone the precious time wasted in reading 900 pages of crap.
• 
  Matt

  Leaves of Grass: First and “Death-Bed” Editions contains best known work of American poet Walt Whitman as well as additional poems that he published before his breakthrough work and that he didn’t include in his final publication. Containing hundreds of poems from the “father of free verse”, the reader gets a essentially a full view of Whitman’s career from beginning to end. In additional each new section of the book has an introduction by Dr. Karen Karbiener who also wrote the Notes at the end of the book giving the reader a better understanding of the essence surrounding Whitman’s work. Though many Whitman loves will enjoy this book, for some like myself this turned out to be too much of something that it turns out I didn’t like after all.
• 
  Tim

  I fully believe in a clue and purpose in Nature, entire and several; and that Invisible spiritual results, just as real and definite as the visible, eventuate all concrete life all materials, through Time (629) There’s so many quotes I could start with but my own perspective at the moment involves seeing the spiritual in Whitman. There’s a question at the end of this edition asking how we’d describe Whitman’s “religion” or “spirituality”. I’d describe it as universal and authentic, as believing in in the Ultimate but likely not “God” as imagined by dogmatic religion of any kind. He draws from the Bible but only to recognize underlying truth. He’s not concerned with the undue focus on the actual form of things that so much religion gets so wrong. Then again he turns around and embraces those very religious forms as being a beautiful reflection of humanity. The way he transcends things is impressive.
  
  A complaint: I can’t quite get on board with the nationalism. If he were any other color and gender but white and male I wonder how those passages of American optimism might look. Living out of the country for nearly 7 years, I’m nostalgic for America too - but it has more to do with the people I love than the nation as an idea. The desires and attitude he has towards America - its hopes and dreams - are human hopes and reflective of a much more transcendent truth. No nation has a monopoly or some sort of exclusive right to any of that.
  
  But what Whitman did see in transcendent reality was an ultimate or universal good. He didn’t think it had to be tied down with convention - he saw the greatest good through the very essence of what it meant to be human and didn’t think the freedom we have as humans needed to be restricted - that somehow all that we are as humans should be appreciated both good and bad.
  Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes. (153)
  There’s a resonance with the greatest of mystical traditions in this, in the transcendence of opposites to realize that the ultimate reality is only good.
  
  This is a great edition as it includes work that wasn’t in the death-bed edition and has an appendix of contemporary reviews of his work. It’s funny how human cynicism stays the same. Sure Whitman was excessive but he recognized the truth in things and that’s why his writing is timeless and not inconsistent even with scripture. It’s the ineffable nature of his writing that is so powerful....those feelings and sparks of realization that hit you.
• 
  Brian

  Took me almost two years, but I made it through this behemoth. My reading of this volume was of course full of stops and starts and long breaks and periods of more progress and periods of less. I thought this would be my last book of 2022, especially since I just needed one more to meet my reading goal, but I got lazy and basically stopped reading anything for the last couple of weeks. Back at work today for the first workday of the year, I did a couple of lunchtime laps on a trail in a snowy park and finished the last ten or so pages of poems.
  
  What I liked:
  I dog-eared many, many pages to highlight a line, or a poem, or a thought that I found striking (much to my daughter's dismay--she feels this is a form of book abuse or something). I found some of the imagery to be wonderful and there were many sentiments that resonated with me. There were some times where his long lists felt strong, pointed, and rhetorically effective. I even liked some aspects of having such a comprehensive and in-depth view of one poet's writings, where repeated themes and ideas started to sound familiar, and like they all fit together.
  
  What I didn't appreciate:
  This thing is massive and much of it felt like a chore to read. With there being multiple versions of the same poem, (including, apparently, inclusion of multiple versions of poems that were chopped from the "deathbed" version) and then with the same thoughts, ideas, or themes being revisited time and again in similar but slightly different ways, it just started feeling really, REALLY redundant.
  
  The differences between the first and deathbed versions were pretty confusing to me as someone approaching this casually (if that's even the right word...) rather than in a scholarly setting. In other words, I don't know that I really appreciated having both versions in a single volume. I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more having them packaged as two books. And then all of the "extra" stuff--the poems published outside of LoG, the Old Age Echoes, the "Other Poems" section... so much of it seemed like it was unnecessary.
  
  Stylistically, I've determined that I'm not a huge fan of Whitman's. The writing in the book feels wildly inconsistent from one section to the next, but overall, it feels like a lot of aimless rambling without a whole lot of attention to style. Could very well be that I'm missing some of the finer points, but that's the general impression. As I mentioned earlier, I did mark many pages and passages that stood out, but these felt like small nuggets gleaned from a larger field of difficult or uninspiring parts.
  
  In other words, I don't really recommend this as a "read-through" experience. If you're curious about Whitman's poems, pick it up, read through the first edition, check in on other sections that seem interesting, but don't make the mistake that I did of trying to read it as a book. It just doesn't feel like the work is meant to be consumed that way, even over a period of almost two years.
• 
  Illiterate

  Although the Death Bed edition dilutes the energy of the 1855 one, it gains much from quieter and gentler moments. Book 27 is a particularly moving addition.
• 
  Hemmel

  It is mainly the subject matter that kept me from enjoying these poems. With some exceptions, his life experiences and thoughts don't make my heart sing with him.
• 
  Ariel

  So, here's the deal. I took a long time with this, long for me. There were parts that I skimmed over, parts that made me uncomfortable, parts that made me reevaluate personal perceptions, parts that I couldn't identify with, and parts that I reread several times. All of these parts culminated in a five star rating, a five star read.
  
  That's not to say that editing couldn't or shouldn't be had. In fact, Whitman apparently held the same view and did the deed quite often. But that's just it... when you read Whitman you get a sense of a breathing creation that grew out of experience and became simply more of itself. If we had Whitman's consciousness plugged into the sentient machine from Transcendence he'd still be putting out the new and extended more frequently than your average modern artist. Hence the potential for skimming to be had, having been had, etc.
  
  What I simply loved was Whitman's wordsmithing. Given his reported love of rhythm one can easily see him as a beat poet, cherishing Ginsberg's Sunflower Sutra and marveling in the midst of a group of spoken word enthusiasts. It's this wordsmithing that communicates Whitman's passion to me so transparently. I can't help but be moved by such.
  
  “Loafe with me on the grass—loose the stop from your throat;
  Not words, not music or rhyme I want—not custom or lecture, not even the best;
  Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice. ”
  
  To me, Whitman's Leaves feels like a stop loosened. A freely flowing form that doused, drenched, quenched my own inspiration at several points. Because nothing is as freeing as that already freed. Even if only perceived in its freedom, it stirs the desire and need and I believe that's oft the majority of the battle.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Brenda M.

  I think this book was unnecessary long and repetitive, and I definitely don't see "America" the same way Whitman did; I can't help but see him as a hypocrite who wrote about "women's rights and labor and immigration issues" in his poems, but supported the USA's expansionist war with Mexico in his journalism. He was white trash a blind patriot who thought abolitionists were too radical and I think he would support Trump if he was alive. I'm pretty sure white supremacists enjoy this kind of poetry. Sorry but I can't relate.
  The few poems I did like from this book are:
  Song of Myself (just some sections)
  Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd
  Scented Herbage Of My Breast
  To a Stranger
  This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful
  O You Whom I Often and Silently Come
  To You
  There Was a Child Went Forth
  Warble for Lilac-Time
  Miracles
  Who Learns My Lesson Complete?
  Proud Music of the Storm
• 
  Roberto

  If I were on a prison cell charged with life imprisonment, forbidden to interact with anyone, and restricted to read one book for the rest of my life, this would be my number one choice. I have found no greater peace, wisdom, suffering, voice, and humanity in what I believe is the best book of poetry ever written. It has been the only book to has made me cry three times while reading it, and they were cries of happiness. I too cry my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of this 21st century world, and because of you, my dear Walt, I have become a poet also. Thank you.
• 
  Elise R

  This was the first time I really read any Whitman extensively. I couldn't help but think how groundbreaking this work must have been at the time. I probably shouldn't have read all of it in one sitting, as it all kind of blurred together. They're the kind of poems you read when you need a confidence boost.
• 
  Ginnie Grant

  Plain and simple words to live by. Everyone alive should read leaves of Grass at least once
• 
  Tom

  Many exceptional poems.
• 
  Ann

  These poems felt like that one audio u hear on tiktok/ Instagram reels where Beyoncé’s crazy in love instrumental plays and someone is going “Ammeyrican dreamm, best countrayy”
• 
  Melissa

  This is not a book to pick up and read straight through! It requires sufficient reflection, and time to visualize his words.
  
  Whitman questions cultural boundaries between people - men/women, rich/poor, races, and religions in much of his work. He explores all that is beautiful in life, and passionately theorizes/preaches about his and nature’s immortality. He “sings” of many things in his poems. I give many examples below, but these are MY personal interpretations, and may not always be in keeping with accepted analysis.
  
  Whitman’s respect for the beauty and perfection of nature is everywhere. Even the dreaded enemy of today’s urban lawns in “The Dandelion", reliably ushers in spring. He often paints a picture, by endless example at times, of nature's resilience, and how we can learn from its example, as he explains in "Me Imperturbe".
  
  Whitman explores relationships between man and woman, or other combinations of the two... with such passion. He shares thoughts about illusion in "Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?" He hints at the permanence of soul mates in "To a Stranger", and the reincarnation of all things in nature in “Continuities”. He shows how to learn from those who reject us in “Stronger Lessons”. Further, while I can’t claim to understand “The House of Friends” in its entirety, the closing passage:
  

  “But fear not most the angriest, loudest malice –
  Fear most the still and forked fang
  That starts from the grass at your feet”

  
  …. which is clearly advice to clean one’s own porch before worrying about the evil in others.
  Further, dear Walt offers praise to the givers of life, women, in "Unfolded Out of the Folds" and points out that man comes from woman:
  

  “First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped in himself.” I love that…

  
  Whitman’s passion for life, and beyond, and the passage of time and aging, as night follows day, is illustrated succinctly in "Youth, Day, Old Age and Night", but is driven home in "To Think of Time". In that poem, he made a strong statement about the importance of all things, and the equal value of all walks of life, whether well-known or obscure, and how time will continue beyond our thoughts and cares in this life. My favorite passage from that poem:
  

  "The vulgar and the refined, what you call sin and what you call goodness, to think how wide a difference,
  To think the difference will still continue to others, yet we lie beyond the difference."

  
  He also sings of children. "There Was a Child Went Forth" is a brilliant illustration of how we are products of our environment. In “The Play-Ground” he shows his gratitude for their levity and prays to angels to shield them.
  
  Walt’s passion for the topic of death may have begun in his youth as illustrated in his poem about watching a feathered friend lose its mate in "Sea-Drift". Some of my favorites on death are "O Captain, My Captain!" and "The City Dead House".
  
  In his poetry, he sang songs of himself, of the time in which he lived, of the nature of being. To merely read the words can often leave a person puzzled, as if reading an encyclopedia listing of occupations or ways of life, or a myriad of nature observations. But if the reader pictures or visualizes the entries - walks of life, scenes from nature, landscapes, etc - as he compulsively strives toward inclusiveness and celebrating everyone and everything, it is actually a beautiful time capsule of life in 1800's-era America, from his perspective.
  
  Leaves of Grass was originally released as free verse poetry in 1855, then regularly revised, updated, and appended till its release as the Deathbed Edition in 1891-92. The edition I read also included much of his early “rhyming” work, as well. I highly recommend the Leaves of Grass: First and Death-Bed Editions to fully grasp his transitions and growth over the years.
• 
  Chris

  Such a unique voice. I loved the combination of observation of everyday folks of all sorts, along with his own take on spirituality. Pretty radical for the time. Interesting that he kept revising Leaves of Grass and the final versions contain a lifetime of writing poetry.
• 
  Britta Stumpp

  from Starting from Paumanok
  
  Here lands female and male,
  Here the heir-ship and heiress-ship of the world, here the flame of materials,
  Here spirituality the translatress, the openly-avow'd,
  The ever-tending, the finale of visible forms,
  The satisfier, after due long-waiting now advancing,
  Yes here comes my mistress the soul.
  
  from I Sing the Body Electric
  
  This is the female form,
  A divine nimbus exhales from it head to foot,
  It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction.
  Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands
  all diffused, mine too diffused,
  Be not ashamed women, You are the gates of the body,
  and you are the gates of the soul.
  
  from Song of Myself
  
  I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the
  stars
  
  from Poets to Come
  Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
  Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for,
  But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than
  before known,
  Arouse! for you must justify me.
• 
  Kai Coates

  Whitman is known as the great American poet and before reading
  Leaves of Grass, I had not idea just how much that title was self-imposed. Whitman's poems are uniquely American - at once both expansive and intimate. He has a very egalitarian viewpoint, sometimes putting prostitutes and the President on the same human level. Parts of his work still feel very fresh and revolutionary. This edition features both the original edition and the "Death Bed" edition. The original is manifesto-like, while the "Death Bed" poems are more concentrated and, for me, powerful. He was definitely not only a man of his time, writing eloquently about the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln, but also a man who had a clear vision of what America should mean. In "To Foreign Lands" he writes:
  "I heard that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle the New World,
  And to define America, her athletic Democracy,
  Therefore I send you my poems that you behold in them what you wanted."
  
• 
  Samantha Rose

  This is such a good book, Walt Whitman is one of my favourite poets. Albeit he was a little full of himself, his poems move me in so many ways. Last summer I walked outback in my yard in a field and read and read this book. I really recommend this book to those ages 15-17 and up because of sexual lines(in a beautiful romantic way). The first edition of LOG is smaller, the "Death-Bed" edition is larger.
  The way he writes is so real, like it's a train of thought. Very good book.
• 
  Stewart

  Walt Whitman is our national bard, whose overwhelming poetic vision of America is so powerfully transcendent that one suspects he is our national bodhisattva as well. Pure, deep, gregarious, filled with love and intimacy…his verse has an uncanny knack for summoning up the best part of ourselves. His is a voice and a spirit one wishes to live up to.
• 
  The Witch

  I am convinced Walt Whitman is the original Dr. Who. I'm not sure anything I say can do his genius justice but I will simply say that to read Whitman is to, not only live a multitude of lives, but to live them vicariously. I'm no poet but my goodness does reading Leaves of Grass make me want to be one.
• 
  Evan

  Buy this, and not just because my professor was the editor, and not just because she gave me an A in her Walt Whitman class. That Walt was something else.
  
  "Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
  Missing me one place search another,
  I stop some where waiting for you"
• 
  Connieb

  Hmmm, looks like I have 2 ebook editions, this one
  http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/76... and the Death Bed edition. Hate it when I do that, but perhaps one will have a few titles the other one doesn't.
• 
  Dayna Smith

  A classic collection of poetry by arguably the most famous American poet. Whitman's poetry is free verse and some selections are a bit tedious to read, but his style is totally American and well worth reading.
• 
  Grace

  My five-star rating is probably more of a result of the fact that the editor was my professor and she was absolutely fantastic. I don't think I have ever met someone so genuinely passionate about a writer before.
• 
  Russ

  What can I say about a book that changes the perspective of our culture.I re-read this once every spring.
• 
  Andrew

  Whitman's introduction to the original work is wonderful. Don't buy an edition without it.