Walt Whitman has been called America’s “bard of democracy.”  His life’s work, Leaves of Grass, usheredin a new and unconventional style of unrhymed verse. The New York Public Library will celebrate the bicentennial of the iconic writer’s birth with an exhibition that honors Whitman’s impact on America and examines the many influences that shaped his writing.

Walt Whitman: America’s Poet is curated by Michael Inman, Curator of Rare Books at the Library, and will open March 29, 2019 at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. The following list is for further reading curated by Inman.  

Suggested Writings by Whitman

Walt Whitman: Poetry and Prose. New York: Library of America, 2019.

Walt Whitman’s Selected Journalism. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2015.

Leaves of Grass and Other Writings. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002.

Life and Adventures of Jack Engle: An Auto-Biography; A Story of New York at the Present Time in which the Reader Will Find Some Familiar Characters. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2017.

Manly Health and Training: To Teach the Science of a Sound and Beautiful Body. New York: Regan Arts, 2017.

Franklin Evans, or The Inebriate. A Tale of the Times. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.

19th-Century American Poetry

Hollander, John, ed. American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century. 2 vols. New York: Library of America, 1993.

Spengemann, William. Nineteenth-Century American Poetry. New York: Penguin, 1996.

Selected Books About Whitman: Biographical, Critical, and Historical Works

Folsom, Ed, Jim Perlman, and Dan Campion, eds. Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song. Duluth, MN: Holy Cow! Press, 1998.

Kaplan, Justin. Walt Whitman: A Life. New York: Perennial Classics, 2003.

Kummings, Donald D., and J. R. LeMaster, eds. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Walt Whitman. New York: Routledge, 2011.

Levin, Joanna, and Edward Whitley, eds. Whitman Among the Bohemians. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2014.

Loving, Jerome. Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000.

Matthiessen, F.O. American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968.

Oliver, Charles M. A Critical Companion to Walt Whitman: A Literary Reference to His Life And Work. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

Reynolds, David. Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Reynolds, David. Walt Whitman’s America. New York: Knopf, 1995.

Whitman for Children and Young Adults

Poetry for Kids: Walt Whitman. Kate Evans, Illustrator. London: MoodDance Press, 2017.

Poetry for Young People: Walt Whitman. Jim Burke, Illustrator. London: Sterling, 2008.

Hear America Singing: Poems of Democracy, Manhattan and the Future. Robert Sabuda, Illustrator. Manchester, UK: Carcanet Press, 2004.

Walt Whitman: Words for America. Brian Selznick, Illustrator. New York: Scholastic Press, 2004.

Selected American Writers Inspired by Whitman

Crane, Hart. The Complete Poems of Hart Crane. New York: Liveright, 2001.

Ginsberg, Allen. Howl and Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 1959.

Hughes, Langston. The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. New York: Vintage, 1995.

Jordan, June. Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2007.

Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. New York: Penguin, 1999.

Kingston, Maxine Hong. Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book. New York: Vintage, 1990.

Lerner, Ben. 10:04: A Novel. New York: Picador, 2015.

Sandburg, Carl. Selected Poems. New York: Mariner Books, 1996.

Williams, William Carlos. Selected Poems. New York: New Directions, 1985.

Explore additional material relating to Walt Whitman in the Oscar Lion Collection and the Walt Whitman Papers, 1854–1892, both available online in the Library’s Digital Collections: digitalcollections.nypl.org