The American poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892) inspired hundreds of composers to set his verse.

For the Bard of Democracy, as America came to call our great poet, music was a central metaphor in his life and work, both as a metaphysical mindset and as a practical reality. Whitman was blessed with an extraordinary ear for inner rhythms which he then articulated in the radically free, rolling, thrusting verses which revitalized the entire world of poetic language. That same ear led him to the appreciation of classical music. For the poet this was a largely self-taught quest in which he relied on both his innate musicality and his experience as a music journalist to formulate aesthetic principles that would carry over into his poetry. Walt Whitman caroled throughout his verse, song was the language of the soul, and the act of writing poetry was to carol his nation’s soul.

This project includes song texts from Thomas Hampson’s album To the Soul, two essays about Walt Whitman, a Whitman biography and timeline, and more!