Leaves of Grass

The democratic self, sung at full voice. Whitman tried to fit the whole nation into one expanding book and nearly did, insisting that the common person, the worker, the stranger, the body itself, is the proper subject of the highest art. I hear America singing. The poetry of e pluribus unum, of the one made from many, written by a man who believed the republic's deepest truth was its faith in the ordinary citizen. Read it when the country's promise feels worth remembering.

The poet who tried to contain the whole democratic nation in a single expanding book and very nearly did. Leaves of Grass sings the equal dignity of every person and every kind of work, the self that is also the crowd, the e pluribus unum made into verse. He revised it his whole life. To read Whitman is to hear the republic at its most generous and least afraid, insisting that the common person is the proper subject of the highest art.