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Oh, my. Every minute of hard work you dedicate to getting through this collection will be more than worth it. Walt Whitman if one of the great poets and essayists of all time.
In the poem "As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods" he says: 'Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,/ Be not afraid of my body,' which is considered to reflect his fear of death as well as a theme of homoerotic fascination with his own body.
Whitman's imagination is mythical, and he is finds peace to be essential to life and the world even though he sometimes sounds as if is describing warlike activities in exclamatory verse.
The selection of Whitman's work that is included in this book is brilliant.
