Leaves of Grass

Leaves of Grass is a poetry collection by American poet Walt Whitman. Though it was first published in 1855, Whitman spent most of his professional life writing and rewriting Leaves of Grass, revising it multiple times until his death. The title is a pun, as grass was a term given by publishers to works of minor value, and leaves is another name for the pages on which they were printed. Each leaf or blade of grass possesses its own distinct beauty, and together the blades form a beautiful, unified whole, an idea Whitman explores in the sixth section of “Song of Myself.” Multiple leaves of grass thus symbolize democracy, another instance of a beautiful whole composed of individual parts.