"Bloomsbury Poetry Classics" are selections from the work of some of our greatest poets. The series is aimed at the general reader rather than the specialist and carries no critical or explanatory apparatus. This can be found elsewhere. In the series the poems introduce themselves, on an uncluttered page and in a format that is both attractive and convenient. The selections have been made by the distinguished poet, critic and biographer Ian Hamilton. Walt Whitman was born in 1819. He worked as a journalist and newspaper editor for many years before the appearance of his "Leaves Of Grass" in 1855. First acclaimed in England, Whitman's "liquid, billowy waves" of unrhymed, unmarred verse have been deeply influential in the shaping of modern American poetics. During the Civil War, Whitman worked as unofficial nurse, tending the wounds of both sides in army hospitals. He suffered a stroke in 1873, and thereafter lived in semi-retirement in Damden, New Jersey, until his death in 1892.
