He left his position on
"The Brooklyn Eagle" and wandered south to New Orleans. By and by
he drifted back to New York, tried lecturing, worked at the
carpenter's trade with his father, and brooded over a book--"a
book of new things."
This was the famous "Leaves of Grass." He set the type himself,
in a Brooklyn printing-office, and printed about eight hundred
copies. The book had a portrait of the author--a meditative,
gray-bearded poet in workman's clothes--and a confused preface on
America as a field for the true poet. Then followed the new
gospel, "I celebrate myself," chanted in long lines of free
verse, whose patterns perplexed contemporary readers. For the
most part it was passionate speech rather than song, a
rhapsodical declamation in hybrid rhythms. Very few people bought
the book or pretended to understand what it was all about. Some
were startled by the frank sexuality of certain poems. But
Emerson wrote to Whitman from Concord: "I find it the most
extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet
contributed.
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