This is the first printing of a newly restored edition of Walt Whitman’s twelve-poem sequence written in the late 1850s and subsequently dispersed by the poet among the “Calamus” cluster in Leaves of Grass. After an exhaustive textual analysis of Whitman’s manuscripts of the poems, Steven Olsen-Smith, professor of English at Boise State University, has restored the sequence to its original state and supplied an afterword on the interpretive significance of the restorations. Images of Whitman’s annotated manuscript pages parallel the restored text. A very personal foreword by poet Richard Tayson positions the piece within the context of a 21st century gay man. Photographs by University of Connecticut Professor of Art Emeritus Roger Crossgrove provide a further visual narrative. The book was designed, assembled, and printed by Rutherford Witthus in Walpole, New Hampshire, in an edition of five lettered copies for the contributors and twenty numbered copies.
© 2023 Rutherford Witthus