All Things and All Shapes Whitman

At the New York Times, Jennifer Schuessler details how one might immerse oneself "in all things Whitman at three different exhibitions running deep into the summer," even if bicentennial festivities were missed (Walt Whitman's birthday was on May 31).

“Walt Whitman: America’s Poet,” at the New York Public Library, surveys the landmarks of the poet’s public career, drawing in large part from its rich holdings. “Poet of the Body: New York’s Walt Whitman,” at the Grolier Club in Manhattan, takes a more intimate look. And Walt Whitman: Bard of Democracy,” which opens at the Morgan Library & Museum on June 7, features items from the Morgan alongside loans from the Library of Congress (including an errant 19th-century butterfly with a back story as colorful as its wings).

The exhibitions showcase manuscripts, books and photographs, but also some more unusual traces of the poet whose name, the exhibition at the New York Public Library puts it, stands as “a byword for the notions of inclusivity, equality, sensuality and the value of the individual.”

Schuessler also explores Whitman the shape-shifter, looking at his time in Brooklyn, as radical poet, as dandy, as "gay pioneer," "souvenir seller," storyteller, in stereo ("Whitman was the most photographed poet of the 19th century"), as "butterfly whisperer," "graybeard," and brand ambassador. Read on at the NYT.