America's Poet

Celebrate Poe

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Welcome to Celebrate Poe - This is episode 248 - America’s Poet - This is the first full episode of Pride Month dealing with Walt Whitman.
This episode emphasizes that Whitman continually revised and added new poems to his masterpiece "Leaves of Grass" over his lifetime to symbolize the organic, ever-changing nature of the work itself. This allowed the work to grow and evolve much like living grass. The different editions from 1855 to 1892 were almost entirely re-written collections rather than mere revisions.
The fact that the title is "Leaves of Grass" rather than something more conventionally poetic reflects Whitman's desire to create a uniquely American form of poetry drawn from common life and language - not a form of poetry that only expresses or upper class concerns - but a literature that can reflect the concerns of ALL people.
He was truly America's poet.