Whitman …

• Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892) was an American poet and writer.
• At first, he was not understood either by his relatives or by many of his readers.
• His poetry seems to be repeated observations that some people do not get. After reading his poems over and over, one starts to see through his eyes. He was watching everything.
• For Whitman, almost everything and everyone is fascinating.
• "I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars,
  And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,
  And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest,
  And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
  And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
  And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue,
  And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
  
  I find I incorporate gneiss, coal, long- threaded moss, fruits,
  grains, esculent roots,
  And am stucco'd with quadrupeds and birds all over,
  And have distanced what is behind me for good reasons,
  But call any thing back again when I desire it."
  - Walt Whitman, Song of Myself (31)

  "Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, ... It is to grow in the open air, and to eat and sleep with the earth."
  - Walt Whitman