Widely considered the most influential and innovative poet of America, Walt Whitman was born in West Hills, a village near Hempstead, Long Island, on 31 May 1819 to Walter and Louisa Van Velsor Whitman. His father had been born just after the end of the...

"A great figure, the greatest assuredly in our literature—yet perhaps only a great childsumming up and transmitting into poetry all the passionate aspirations of an America that had passed through the romantic revolution, the poet of selfhood and t...

"A great figure, the greatest assuredly in our literature--yet perhaps only a great child--summing up and transmitting into poetry all the passionate aspirations of an America that had passed through the romantic revolution, the poet of selfhood and the...

A reviewer of kids' books talks to the writers who created them MY ON-GOING FASCINATION WITH CHILDREN'S LITERATURE BEGAN when, as a college student, I spent a semester reading stacks of 150-year-old storybooks for schoolchildren. The authors of those books were, of course,...

Monarch Notes 01-01-1963 Song Of Myself: Sections 39 - 52 Sections 39-40. From the trembling of the last few sections, the poet moves ahead and upward with strength and confidence. The Christ image of Section 38 is suddenly joined by: The friendly and flowing...