Nick Tanner in New York writes:
It's 150 years since Walt Whitman published the first edition of Leaves of Grass, the book which shook open American poetry and introduced one of the most distinctive voices in the literature of the United States. The copy of the first edition on display in a new anniversary exhibition at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York shows that it wasn't just the content that made this book unusual, but also Whitman's choice of design: larger than an ordinary volume of poetry, bound in dark green leather with gold embossed pages, the book carried no author's name on the cover, spine or title page, and curious readers had to wait 29 more pages to be introduced to "Walt Whitman, an American." Whitman's determination to do things his own way, whether in the day to day business of publishing or in his choices of style and subject matter, was stamped through his career. As he commented towards the end of his life, "I have had my say entirely my own way, and put it unerringly on record - the value thereof to be decided by time."
The decision that time has come to, Whitman's reputation as the first great American poet, is the subject of this new exhibition, which draws together manuscripts, texts, photographs and contemporary artefacts to illustrate the development of Whitman's unique style and the day to day existence he ploughed into his poetry. Beginning with a heavy printing press from 1876, Whitman's journey from the child of barely literate parents to master poet is shown through the medium of the printing process, from his early work as a printer and typesetter to later positions as a journalist and editor. The skills he learnt were to stand him in good stead, as a carefully corrected proof for Patroling Barnegat (1880) shows, the poet making a number of alterations including the addition 'by Walt Whitman' under the title.
Alongside several printed editions a group of manuscripts shows the poet at work on his compositions, his large, loping script echoing the rich Biblical cadences of the printed verse. In one example Whitman writes not along the lines of the paper but across them vertically, and the impression of the long script filling up the page is almost that of a visual composition divorced from its content. The page ends with a small blue sheet containing a correction which has been stuck over an unsatisfactory line, Whitman an early pioneer of cut and paste as well as a keen saver of paper.
A copy of Specimen Days (1881), Whitman's prose account of his experiences as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War, illustrates the deep impression this period was to make on his later writing. One passage describes a young Irish soldier, recently arrived to fight for the Union, and now dying in a field hospital: "a fine built man, the tan not yet bleach'd from his face and neck," who lay "like some frighten'd, shy animal." As well as tending to soldiers of both sides, Whitman also wrote reams of letters to his patients' families, often years after the war had ended, giving news of treatments and remembering those who had lost their lives. In one, to the family of one Erastus Haskell, Whitman writes "the remembrance will be not sadly only but sweet." These letters provide a poignant contrast to the photographs of wholesale slaughter that accompany them, and represent a characteristic and entirely personal compassion that Whitman strove to impart to those he could during these years of impersonal turmoil.
By the time of the eighth and final edition of Leaves of Grass (1891-2), the book had swelled from 12 to over 400 poems, and if not the all-conquering success he had hoped for, Whitman's presence was stamped indelibly on the American consciousness. His knack for self-publicity had helped: when an anonymous review had trumpeted the arrival of "an American bard at last" Whitman didn't hesitate to publish it as an appendix to his next edition, unperturbed by the fact that he had written it himself. The final stage of the exhibition examines the influence Whitman's writings have had since the poet's death, from a can of Walt Whitman Wax Beans to tributes from his droves of admirers. DH Lawrence called Whitman "the one pioneer," while Bill Clinton's gift of a copy of Leaves of Grass to Monica Lewinsky (his favourite present to young women) prompted this heartfelt response from the intern: "Whitman is so rich that one must read him like one tastes a fine wine or a good cigar - take it, roll it in your mouth, and savour it."
Whitman's own take on the presidency is a little more sobering, and in these days of executive prerogative is worth mulling over: "Of all nations the United States, with veins full of the poetical stuff, most needs poets and will doubtless have the greatest and use them the greatest. Their presidents shall not be their common referees so much as their poets shall."
Walt Whitman and the Promise of America: 1855-2005 is at the South Street Seaport Museum, 12 Fulton Street, until the end of July.
