Fiona Sampson

Walt Whitman’s poetry can change your life

Mark Doty describes how a close reading of ‘Song of Myself’ led to a greater understanding of his own self and the world

Walt Whitman in 1887. His extraordinary gaze survives even slow-motion 19th-century photography. (getty images)

  • What is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life

    Mark Doty

    Jonathan Cape, pp. 278, £16

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