What Is the Grass
Walt Whitman in My Life
WW Norton · Print & ebook · April 6, 2021
“[An] incisive, personal mediation.” —New York Times Book Review Mark Doty has always felt haunted by Walt Whitman’s perennially new American voice, and by his equally radical claims about body and soul.
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- Who it’s for
- Mark Doty brings biography, criticism, and memoir into conversation with Whitman and Leaves of Grass.
- Genres
- Writers' Lives, Poetry Criticism, LGBTQ+ Poetry
- Published
- WW Norton, April 6, 2021
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Join the waitlistAbout this book
“[An] incisive, personal mediation.” —New York Times Book Review Mark Doty has always felt haunted by Walt Whitman’s perennially new American voice, and by his equally radical claims about body and soul. In What Is the Grass, Doty effortlessly blends biography, criticism, and memoir to keep company with Whitman and his Leaves of Grass, tracing the resonances between his own experience and the legendary poet’s life and work.
Poetry in Company
Mark Doty brings biography, criticism, and memoir into conversation with Whitman and Leaves of Grass.
Come here for
- Whitman’s American voice and ideas of body and soul
- A personal encounter with a poet’s life and work
Expect
- Literary criticism alongside personal reflection
- Resonances between Doty’s experience and Whitman’s life and work
Where it sits
| Poetry Criticism | 54% |
|---|---|
| Writers' Lives | 35% |
| LGBTQ+ Poetry | 34% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Writers' Lives
- Queer Literary Criticism
- Poetry Criticism
- Authors
- Mark Doty
- Publisher
- WW Norton
- Published
- April 6, 2021
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Writers' Lives