Walt Whitman speaks : his final thoughts on life, writing, spirituality, and the promise of America, as told to Horace Traubel ; edited and with an introduction by Brenda Wineapple

"Here is Whitman the sage, champion of expansiveness and human freedom. Here too, is the poet's more personal side--his vivid memories of Thoreau, Emerson, and Lincoln, his literary judgments of writers such as Shakespeare, Goethe, and Tolstoy, and his expressions of hope in the democratic promise of the nation he loved. The result is a keepsake edition to touch the soul, capturing the distilled wisdom of America's greatest poet"--from book jacket.;For the Whitman bicentennial, a delightful keepsake edition of the incomparable wisdom of America's greatest poet, distilled from his fascinating late-in-life conversations with Horace Traubel. Toward the end of his life, Walt Whitman was visited almost daily at his home in Camden, New Jersey, by the young poet and social reformer Horace Traubel. After each visit, Traubel meticulously recorded their conversation, transcribing with such sensitivity that Whitman's friend John Burroughs remarked that he felt he could almost hear the poet breathing. In Walt Whitman Speaks, acclaimed author Brenda Wineapple draws from Traubel's extensive interviews an extraordinary gathering of Whitman's observations that conveys the core of his ethos and vision. Here is Whitman the sage, champion of expansiveness and human freedom. Here, too, is the poet's more personal side--his vivid memories of Thoreau, Emerson, and Lincoln, his literary judgments on writers such as Shakespeare, Goethe, and Tolstoy, and his expressions of hope in the democratic promise of the nation he loved. The result is a keepsake edition to touch the soul, capturing the distilled wisdom of America's greatest poet.;Introduction / by Brenda Wineapple -- Nature -- The human heart -- Writing -- Writers -- Reading -- Leaves of Grass -- My poetry -- Literature -- Critics -- Art and artists -- Self-reliance -- Egotism -- Self-reflection -- Women -- Love -- Sex -- Friendship -- Democracy -- America -- The Civil War -- Lincoln -- Heroes -- History -- Biography -- Politics and politicians -- Radicals -- Internationalism -- Science -- Religion -- Mystery, faith, and the universe -- Immortality -- My philosophy -- Spirituality -- Success -- Aging. A delightful keepsake edition of the incomparable wisdom of America's greatest poet, distilled from his fascinating late-in-life conversations with Horace Traubel. What is essential in life? How do we live most fully? In his final years, Walt Whitman reflected on his bedrock beliefs and on the experience of a live lived passionately and with sympathy toward others and the universe itself. Speaking to the young journalist and reformer Horace Traubel, who visited him nearly every day at his home in Camden, New Jersey, Whitman offered profound perspectives about fundamental questions, encompassing the spiritual, political, and all that he had learned over seven decades of vigorous living. Traubel's meticulous transcriptions of these conversations were eventually published in nine volumes. In Everything Is Life , acclaimed author Brenda Wineapple ( Ecstatic Nation ) has compiled an extraordinary selection of Whitman's observations that conveys the core of his...