Leaves of Grass

A poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman, self-published in 1855 and then repeatedly revised and expanded across nine editions through the rest of his life, ending with the 1892 "deathbed edition." Written largely in free verse and celebrating the human body, democracy and the American landscape in an expansive, catalog-like style, it broke sharply with the formal conventions of its era and is now regarded as one of the most influential single works in American poetry.