This is a book that has been neglected on my bookshelves for WAY too long. I have been circling ever closer to it since starting the Less Stupid Civil War Reading Group years ago, and all the reading on the war and the Reconstruction period after, including a collection of some of Whitman’s poems and some of his Civil War writings.

I will not lie, there were sections I had to drag myself through here with a brain full of mush. But like I could give up on Walt “I contain multitudes” Whitman? Walt “This is What You Shall Do” Whitman? Clearly, no. Because when this poetry caught wind — the heights that it soared to!

This edition contained some reflections by Whitman at the end, on what he had attempted to do with this verse, on how it had been received, trying to place it in context of the poetry before. This is poetry that celebrates America, from Coast to Coast, from destitution to riches, man and woman, Black, white, and Native, and every kind of labor. From this point in history, parts of that celebration leave a bitter taste, but the celebration of humanity itself, and especially the humble, is remarkable.

What it captures of its time and place — the years of war, the explosion into the West, in so few pages is something only poetry can do.

I am glad to have finally gotten to this one! ( )

4 1/2 stars, really, but we can't do that. This is the original 1855 version. Whitman added to the collection throughout his life, ending up with an overstuffed and very uneven "deathbed" version, which is better known. There are some good poems in it which aren’t in the original, such as When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d, but there’s a lot of pretty weak stuff, too. The 1855 has a small number of pretty consistently excellent poems which are highly original and loosely but definitely connected. Reading it is a very different experience from wading through the bloated, inconsistent final version – there’s something Whitmanesque (i.e., at it’s best) about the original collection as a unit. I also recall Malcolm Cowley’s introduction being a bit wild and wooly (written in the late 60s or early 70s), but being interesting and enlightening. ( )

Rambling Charter towards inner freedoms and a diary of sorts in prose. There is much that Whitman explores about sexuality and as a radical, his enduring take on the world, as much an outsider as an insider, it was a shame it took so long for his work to be recognised. "Song of the Open Road", a particular favourite section, and "By the Roadside", some incredibly rich sexually explicit desires thrust forward as I imagine Walt like D.H.Lawrence exuding all that natural naked strength in spirit and in mind. ( )

Perfection. I can't think of much more to say... It a book you get lost in the best possible way. ( )

Leaves of grass my ass? More like leaves of ass my grass! What? ( )