During the eighteenth century, poetry had a very distinct style but was inferior to the styles of poetry from other eras. This all changed when a new poet with a very nontraditional style of poetry came about. Walt Whitman was a poet who shocked the world. Whitman’s topics and the way he came across with his themes had never been seen before. At first, Whitman’s poetry was highly criticized because is was so different and straight forward about certain things such as sexuality. Although Whitman struggled with the public’s opinion about his poetry other writers realized his talent and were hooked immediately. Walt Whitman is known for his ability to make the reader feel like a fellow poet, his emotional honesty and complexity and for his faith in the future of his country.

The upcoming of Walt Whitman was that of a normal boy during the nineteenth century. Whitman’s childhood was average and he had many brothers and sisters. The birth of “Walter Whitman Jr. was in West Hills, New York in 1819” (Berthold). Whitman didn’t have much of a relationship with his father but “was always close with his mother” (Berthold). Walt fell in love with New York very quickly. He was in a Boston public school but often found himself “riding the ferry and walking the streets” (Berthold). Whitman would always be “checking out the museums, constantly taking note of life happening around him” (Berthold). Whitman was only eleven when “he had to drop out of school and work to support his family” (Berthold). Whitman’s childhood experiences definitely impacted his style of writing later on.

The many careers Walt Whitman has gone through had direct influences in his poetry. Walt was both a teacher and editor early in his job record. Just for two years “he taught school on Long Island and edited the Long Islander” (Berthold). Whitman actually worked for the government while continuing to write. While working for the government, Whitman “served as a clerk in the Department of the Interior” (Berthold). However, after the publishing of his first book of poems, Leaves of Grass, Whitman “was discharged because Leaves of Grass was considered and immoral book” (Berthold). Whitman also had a volunteer job during the Civil War. For the years between “1862-1865 Whitman worked as a volunteer hospital nurse in Washington” (Berthold). The time he spent in and around the war “molded his poems, “Drum-taps” and “Sequel to Drum-taps” published in 1865 and 1866” (Berthold). Because of Whitman’s such wide variety of jobs, he was able to pull experiences or ideas from them and put them into his writing.

Whitman’s style of poetry was very different from the styles previous to his. The public didn’t accept his new way of writing at first. A main shock to his readers was “Whitman’s exaltation of the body and sexual love” (Moracc). Another adjustment readers had to make had to make “was not its free-verse but the extraordinary metaphysical thought that underlined so much” (Aubrey). In one of Walt’s better-known poems, “Song of Myself”, he “establishes a poetic identity that is uniquely American, a poetic form that breaks with the old forms” (Bloom). Whitman was one of the first poets in the era of Realism. This new era separates itself by getting rid of “dry subject matter inherited from the long, extensive British literary tradition (Bloom). Whitman is “widely recognized as a formative influence on the works of Hart Crane, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens and Allen Ginsberg” (Berthold). When comparing the style of writing between Whitman and those before him, there are no similarities because he has started a new era of writing.

Walt Whitman’s first collection of poems, Leaves of Grass, was very popular but not right of the bat. Within this collection there are only a few that stick out among the others. “Song of Myself” has a way of the “large self continually flooding into and interpreting the small, personal self” (Aubrey). Another well-known poem of Whitman’s is “Passage to India” and it “began by celebrating three achievements of contemporary technology: the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the laying of the trans-Atlantic cable and the growth of the American transcontinental railroad” (Aubrey). Walt Whitman also published a book in 1883. The book “Specimen Days and Collect contains his earliest recollections and descriptions of the war years and of the assassination of Lincoln” (Moracc). Although it was Whitman’s first collection of poems, Leaves of Grass was not a big hit. The collection was so different from anything else that it was a “commercial failure” (Moracc). However, “critical viewers recognized the appearance of a bold new voice in poetry” (Moracc). Whitman wrote his three main poems in Leaves of Grass and his book all from personal experience or from what was going on during his time period.

Leaves of Grass was Whitman’s prized collection of poems that are metaphorical and take some time to understand. These poems were very patriotic and were subjected towards America’s future. Leaves of Grass “embraces the science and commercialism of Industrial America” (Luckett). Whitman’s poems “trace the geographical, social, and spiritual contours of an expanding nation” (Luckett). Many editions of Leaves of Grass later, “Whitman undoubtedly succeeded in his attempt to articulate an authentic American poetic voice” (Aubrey). Whitman had success in getting his ideas across to his readers. Whitman “did not regard sex as an inappropriate subject for poetry and he insisted that is was central to the design of Leaves of Grass” (Aubrey). Whitman was also able to let Leaves of Grass “take on various roles to lead his readers to a fuller understanding of this democratic universe” (Luckett). Leaves of Grass expresses how prideful Whitman is in his country and how he cares for the future of it.

Literary critics realized Whitman’s skill in poetry even though the public didn’t. Walt used many techniques to get across is opinions about America. Whitman has a technique that “makes the reader a fellow poet who joins hands with him to traverse the poetic landscape” (Luckett). He was also very good at “subordinated techniques, such as alliteration, repetition, inversion, and conventional meter to his expansive form” (Luckett). Literary scholars discuss the “all seeing American bard that Whitman believed was appropriate for a vast and still expanding land” (Aubrey). Walt Whitman was widely known for breaking the rules of previous writing styles. Whitman “broke taboos with his extensive use of sexual imagery to portray the life in its wholeness” (Luckett). He went against the usual diction of poems “by extracting a rich vocabulary from foreign languages, science, opera, various trades and the ordinary language of town and country” (Luckett). Whitman’s work may have not been publicly popular but critical reviewers loved his new style and voice in poetry.

There is plenty of interesting, personal information about Walt Whitman. He was a religious man, but his beliefs did not match those of people living among him. Whitman was known to be a “pagan, ecumenical, and free of prejudice and bigotry in his writings” (Lewis). Although a pagan, his “poetry is based on the best precepts of Christianity” (Lewis). Even today Walt Whitman is considered an innovator in poetry and will forever be remembered. Whitman has long since passed but “his life and time fade into the glories of a heroic past and his poetry remains as an emblem of his country” (Lewis). Not just in the history of poets will Whitman be remembered but “into America’s myth of themselves as their greatest invention in literature and as their lyric voice” (Lewis). Whitman has “contributed to American literature, however, Whitman’s contributions to American cultural life were equally great” (Lewis). Whitman’s fascinating and successful life as a poet will not be forgotten.

As an innovator in poetry, Walt Whitman’s unconventional style took poetry from Britain and made it America’s. At first, the public thought of his work as immoral and against the normal but they then began to see Whitman’s pride in his country and concern for its future. With Whitman’s skill of putting the reader in his position, expressing his emotional opinions about sexuality and explaining his expectations for the future of his country it is without a doubt that is one of the most respected poets. Walt Whitman’s work will continue to produce curiosity about how he changed poetry from what it was to the present style.