Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song

This is a book to browse, to study, to cherish; for, as much as any one book can, it lets the reader know who and what Whitman was and still is a vital presence. Choice, Outstanding Academic Book citation

I know of no more convincing proof of Walt Whitman’s impact upon the poetic mind (both at home and abroad) than this collection of tributes by poets in prose and verse. Its value is aesthetic, critical, and historical, with a fine scholarly and perceptive introduction by Ed Folsom and a chronological bibliography of poems to and about Whitman. –Gay Wilson Allen

First published to wide critical acclaim in 1981, now re-issued as an expanded and updated third edition to celebrate Whitman’s 200th birthday, this monumental anthology charts the ongoing American and international response to the legacy of the seminal poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892). Beginning with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous 1855 letter ( I greet you at the beginning of a great career… ), this edition contains responses from H. D. Thoreau, Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence, Pablo Neruda, Allen Ginsberg, June Jordan, Robert Duncan, Meridel LeSueur, Adrienne Rich, Gary Snyder, C. K. Williams, Martin Espada, Mark Doty, Meena Alexander, Julia Alvarez, among many others.