An episode from 11/3/25: Tonight, I read what is perhaps Walt Whitman’s greatest poem, “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” I also set it in the context of Whitman’s life as a poet: he wrote and published the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855 and was certain that the book would have an immediate cultural and national impact. When this didn’t happen, and while Whitman was preparing the second edition of Leaves of Grass only a year later, part of his response is expressed in “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”—whose original title was “Sun-Down Poem.”

Here is the most vivid and memorable expression of what I’ve called Whitman’s Mystical Poetry, where he connects readers past and present with his own life. Rarely has an artist’s experience of disappointment and loneliness (and sense of wish-fulfillment) produced something like this.

I read from the first published edition of the poem, which can be found here.

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