From the introduction by Galway Kinnell: The poems of Walt Whitman meant little to me when I read them in high school and college.
Once again, as when I first began writing, it seemed it might be possible to say everything in poetry.. . . .
Soon I understood that poetry could be transcendent, hymn-like, a cosmic song, and yet remain idolatrously attached to the creatures and things of our world. . . .
My experience of Leaves of Grass then was intense.
Luckily, when I was teaching at the University of Grenoble in my late twenties, I was required to give a course on Whitman.
From the introduction by Galway Kinnell: The poems of Walt Whitman meant little to me when I read them in high school and college