How did a carpenter’s son, grammar school dropout and sometime hack writer become America’s greatest poet? To commemorate Whitman’s 200th birthday on May 31, 2019, this landmark exhibition showcases New York`s role in the extraordinary transformation of Walter Whitman Jr. to “Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son.” On public view at the Grolier Club from May 15 to July 27, 2019, the exhibition brings together over 200 extraordinary books, manuscripts, photographs, and other objects to show how this obscure young New Yorker transformed himself into one of America’s great artists, the Poet of the Body: New York’s Walt Whitman. Whitman is now universally acclaimed as the `Good Gray Poet` and for his Civil War writings, though less is known of his early years as a Long Islander, Brooklynite, and self-described `Manhattanese.` The exhibition presents the story of his coming of age as a poet
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