52 WEEKS::Leaves of Grass

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.

~ Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

LEAVES OF GRASS has its genesis in an essay called The Poet by Ralph Waldo Emerson, published in 1844, which expressed the need for the United States to have its own new and unique poet to write about the new country's virtues and vices. Whitman, reading the essay, consciously set out to answer Emerson's call as he began work on the first edition of LEAVES OF GRASS. Whitman, however, downplayed Emerson's influence, stating, "I was simmering, simmering, simmering; Emerson brought me to a boil."