Leaves of Grass belongs to no particular accepted form of poetry. Whitman described its form as “a new and national declamatory expression.” Whitman was a poet bubbling with energy and burdened with sensations, and his poetic utterances reveal his innovations. His poetry seems to grow organically, like a tree. It has the tremendous vitality of an oak. Its growth follows no regular pattern: “Song of Myself,” for example, seems at first almost recklessly written, without any attention to form. Whitman’s poetry, like that of most prophetic writers, is unplanned, disorganized, sometimes abortive, but nevertheless distinctively his own.
