Leaves of Grass
by Walt Whitman
"I congratulate myself, And what you assume is, that for every atom that belongs to Me the good belongs to you. I take it by hand and invite my soul, bow down and breathe nuts with comfort... I'm watching the spear of summer grass... Thus begins the first great American poem, Leaves of Grass, and indeed, it is by far the greatest and most essentially American poetry in all of our national literature. The publication of "Leaves of Grass" in July 1855 was a turning point in the history of literature. Ralph Waldo Emerson praised the book as "the most extraordinary work of intelligence and wisdom that America has yet to bring." Never before had such a thing as volume appeared. Everything in it — an unusual jacket and title page, a lush foreword, twelve unnamed free poems covering every area of the experience — was new. The 1855 edition laid new groundwork in his relaxed style, preforming the free string; in their sexual honesty; in images of racial connection and democratic unity; and in the intensity of his claim to the sanctity of the physical world.
