Walt Whitman was a great man of letters. ‘Leaves of Grass’, is his evergreen contribution to English literature. Whitman had to self-publish this volume of poetry. He entrusted it to a local print shop, which worked on it in between commercial projects. Whitman did not put his name to the book, and printed about 800 copies. His plan was to make an American epic available to the common man. He reworked, revised, and added to the collection till his death in 1892. ‘Beat! Beat! Drums!’ was a patriotic poem penned to inspire the Northern States during the American Civil War and the poem, ‘Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night’, had a new awareness of suffering.
Whitman experimented with his poetry. He wrote poetry that resembled prose. His poetry is noted for the use of strange images such as rotting leaves, tufts of straw, and debris.
Walt Whitman was a key figure in the history of American poetry. Walt Whitman is regarded as the father of free verse.