He came to the big city looking for a newspaper job and wound up becoming the father of American poetry.

Who does not know that our city is the great place of the western continent – the heart, the brain, the focus, the mainspring – the pinnacle, the extremity, the no more beyond of the New World?

Walt Whitman was born in Brooklyn in 1819. By age 12, he was a printer’s apprentice. He became a voracious reader, taking on everything from Shakespeare to the Bible.

In 1841, the 21-year-old Whitman arrived in Manhattan looking for work as a journalist. He fell in love with the city instantly, Whitman got a room in a boarding house on Centre Street and soon began working for a newspaper called The Aurora, one of dozens of popular daily papers that were sold on the street for a penny.

Whitman moved from one to the next, working for The Sun, The Democrat, The Tattler, The Statesman, The Plebian and The Mirror. He founded his own weekly paper, The Long Islander.

He wandered the city streets jotting down what he saw in his ever-present notebook. Whitman was drawn into the maelstrom of city life. Amazed at “the fascinating chaos of Broadway – looking in shop windows – flatting the flesh of my nose on the thick plate glass – reveling in the beautiful ladies, the bustle, the show, the glitter and even the gaudiness.” He used his position as a reporter to get free admission to everything he could. He saw operas, Broadway shows and dance halls and minstrel shows.

In 1848, he left his job at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle for New Orleans to become editor of the New Orleans Crescent, but returned less than a year later. Whitman began to develop a new style of poetry.

In 1855, he published the first edition of his epic work, “Leaves of Grass.” It contained 12 untitled poems. He released a second edition that contained 33 poems. It became an ongoing project that began as an homage to New York City and grew into an edition of more than 300 works. It established Whitman as the Father of American poetry.

Whitman’s poems were written in a form similar to verses found in the Old Testament or in the sacred books of India. The rhythm of his poems were also influenced by the many operas he saw. His poems have been set to music.

The Civil War broke out and Whitman went to Washington D.C., to take care of his brother, who had been wounded in battle. He visited hospitals and was overcome by the suffering of soldiers.

He summed up the futility of the Civil War in his poem “Reconciliation”: “For My enemy is dead, a man as divine as myself is dead.”

Despite his feelings on the war, he was a strong supporter of democracy and greatly admired President Abraham Lincoln.

He stayed in Washington, supporting himself as a clerk until Interior Secretary James Harlan found out that he was the author of “Leaves of Grass,” which Harlan didn’t like. He fired Whitman.

For most of his life, Whitman struggled to get by. What little money he did get – royalties from his book, gifts from friends and other writers, he used to buy supplies for the patients to whom he tended, or sent to his widowed mother and invalid brother.

In the early 1870s, Whitman left Washington to visit his mother.

He suffered a stroke and was unable to return.

The 1882 publication of “Leaves of Grass” earned him enough money to buy a simple two-story house in Camden, N.J.

It was here that he wrote his last poems, “Good-Bye, My Fancy.”

No one captured the feeling of New York City through poetry as Walt Whitman did. In the poem “Manhatta” Whitman wrote: “Manhatta! How fit a name for America’s great democratic island city. The word itself, how beautiful! How aboriginal! How it seems to rise with tall spires, glistening in sunshine, with such New World atmosphere, vista and action!”

Walt Whitman died in 1892.

Source: New York: An Illustrated History, by Ric Burns and James Sanders, with Lisa Ades

Today’s lesson fulfills the following New York standards: E1c, E2d, E3c, E3d, E4a, E4b, E5a, E5b

Discrimination comes in many forms. Discuss your feelings on James Harlan’s firing of Walt Whitman simply because he didn’t like his poems.

Write your own poem about New York City life. See how close your work comes to the emotions described in the excerpts from Walt Whitman’s poems featured in today’s lesson.

Music was a big influence on Walt Whitman’s poems. Write your own poem based on the rhythm of a favorite song.