Showing results by author "Walt Whitman" in All Categories

This collection, narrated by distinguished Broadway actor Brian Murray, includes nine poems from Leaves of Grass - among them "I Hear America Singing", "O Captain! My Captain", and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d", plus four other selections.

Walt Whitman's celebrated poetry collection, read by Ed Begley.

Walt Whitman stands out as one of poetry's towering anomalies: In celebrating the trees, water, sky and air, the bear, the eagle, the buffalo and the lion, Whitman expressed a uniquely democratic vision that engulfs not only the American continent but the entire universe. His passionate vehemence, his faith in the common man, and his unflinching pursuit of the truth gave form to an arsenal of ideas, inspiring and motivating generations of writers to come.

The poems of Leaves of Grass are loosely connected, with each representing Whitman's celebration of his philosophy of life and humanity. This book is notable for its discussion of delight in sensual pleasures during a time when such candid displays were considered immoral. Where much previous poetry, especially English, relied on symbolism, allegory, and meditation on the religious and spiritual, Leaves of Grass exalted the body and the material world.

Leviathans stride the poetic stage, known to us all and revered by many. Their verse is at once familiar and yet constantly reveals new layers and depths, new ways of thinking and assembling words to reveal new truths, new feelings and above all new poetry.

Published anonymously in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (with an earlier draft also appearing as “Arrow-Tip” in The Aristidean), The Half-Breed: A Tale of the Western Frontier is one of the few known works of long-form fiction written by Walt Whitman during the earliest part of his career. It tells the story of Arrow-Tip, a Native American who falls victim to frontier prejudice after the presumed murder of local blacksmith Peter Brown. Despite his presumed innocence, he is soon sentenced to die by hanging — even though there exists evidence that could possibly exonerate him. This narrative is ...

Birds of Passage is a set of seven poems which are part of Walt Whitman's collection Leaves of Grass. The poems are full of idealism and hope for the future. Whitman sings of the Universal, an ideal state which will transcend the misery of life on earth, and praises the Pioneers who will create this new world. - Summary by Alan Mapstone

Walt Whitman's best known poem - a vast and multitudinous celebration of American life in which the 'myself' of the title becomes at one with the universe. 'Song of Myself' was first published in 1855 as part of the collection Leaves of Grass and revised several times for subsequent editions. The version read here appeared as a single poem published in book form by the Roycroft Press of New York in 1904. This version is divided into 52 numbered sections, of 'Cantos', corresponding to the number of weeks in the year. Several of these cantos are well known in their own right, including Canto 6 (...

A truly significant discovery, Walt Whitman’s Manly Health and Training is an entertaining health manifesto that sheds new light on one of America’s major nineteenth-century authors. In the fall of 1858, a thirteen-part essay series appeared in the New York Atlas, under the title Manly Health and Training. This nearly 47,000-word journalistic effort, written by Walt Whitman under his pen name “Mose Velsor,” was lost for more than 150 years, buried in just a handful of library archives, until its recent unexpected discovery.

Selections from Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Stephen Crane, George Pickett, Lt. Colonel W.W. Blackford, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Sarah Morgan Dawson, George T. Stevens, John McElroy, William T. Sherman, Adeline Grey; William Manchester, Paul Fussell, Cornelius Ryan, James J. Fahey, A.J. Liebling, Janet Flanner, David Kenyon Webster, Lewis H. Carlson.

In Walt Whitman Speaks, acclaimed author Brenda Wineapple draws from Traubel’s extensive interviews an extraordinary gathering of Whitman’s observations that conveys the core of his ethos and vision. Here is Whitman the sage, champion of expansiveness and human freedom. Here, too, is the poet’s more personal side - his vivid memories of Thoreau, Emerson, and Lincoln, his literary judgments on writers such as Shakespeare, Goethe, and Tolstoy, and his expressions of hope in the democratic promise of the nation he loved.

Perhaps the first great and truly "American" poet, Walt Whitman's writing reflected the idealism and turbulence of the mid-19th century. His poetry broke new stylistic ground with its unconventional meter and rhyme schemes, yet celebrated democratic values, the beauty of nature, and the complex variety and vitality of American life.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 9 recordings of Myself And Mine by Walt Whitman. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for October 12, 2025. ------ This Fortnightly Poem is from the collection, Leaves of Grass. The book represents a celebration of Whitman's philosophy of life and humanity in which he praises nature and the individual's role in it. He catalogues the expansiveness of American democracy. Rather than dwell on religious or spiritual themes, he focuses primarily on the body and the material world. With very few exceptions, Whitman's poems do not rhyme or follow conventional rules ...

LibriVox volunteers bring you 13 recordings of Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for June 9, 2019. ------ This poem about a battlefield death is taken from Whitman's Leaves Of Grass. ( David Lawrence)

LibriVox volunteers bring you 15 recordings of Long I Thought that Knowledge by Walt Whitman. This was the Weekly Poetry project for June 30, 2019. ------ This poem is taken from Walt Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass"

LibriVox volunteers bring you 13 recordings of Longings for Home by Walt Whitman. This was the Weekly Poetry project for August 26, 2012.Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and – in addition to publishing his poetry – was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding ...

LibriVox volunteers bring you 18 recordings of "O Captain! My Captain!" This was the Weekly Poetry for the week of August 17, 2014."O Captain! My Captain!" is an elegy for Abraham Lincoln written by Walt Whitman, who worked as a clerk and army hospital nurse during the Civil War. The Captain of the poem is Lincoln, and the ship represents the United States, brought safely through the storm of war. In the poem, Whitman juxtaposes the people's joy at the end of the war with his grief at the assassination of the President. (Summary by Laurie Anne Walden)

"The real war will never get in the books," Walt Whitman wrote in this diary he kept during the Civil War. Whitman chronicled his visits to Washington, D.C. hospitals where he comforted wounded men and assisted nurses and doctors. This journal, written by one of America's greatest poets and writers, captures the details and ironies of war.

Walt Whitman’s work influenced many later poetic voices, and no work more so than this epic American poem, 'Leaves of Grass', which he spent his entire life writing and constantly revising until his death. The work heralded a new dynamic relationship in poetry, with its candid and sensual interpretation of his observations and thoughts on the human spirit and all aspects of existence at a time when poetic tradition employed symbolism or allegory.

Walt Whitman’s work influenced many later poetic voices, and no work more so than this epic American poem, 'Leaves of Grass', which he spent his entire life writing and constantly revising until his death. The work heralded a new dynamic relationship in poetry, with its candid and sensual interpretation of his observations and thoughts on the human spirit and all aspects of existence at a time when poetic tradition employed symbolism or allegory.