What's Walt Whitman's legacy as a poet?

“It's one of those curious things that America's great poet is also its great gay poet,” says Northwestern Professor Jay Grossman, who is coordinating the Sixth Annual International Walt Whitman Week with Betsy Erkkila, Helen Sanborn Noyes Professor of Literature. read more

) owes a huge debt to Whitman; as do many, many minor ones. He also helped bring free verse into the mainstream, which, though significantly helped by the Modernists, is a particularly relevant legacy today. read more

And as the first writer of a truly American poetry, Whitman’s legacy endures. You can read and inspect many of Whitman's books, letters, and manuscripts at the Walt Whitman Archive, a digital edition at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, directed by Ed Folsom and Kenneth M. Price. read more