Content:
The name of the proposed poem, "Poem of Kisses," recalls the title format used in the 1856 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. Based on the topic and the manuscript's appearance in Richard Maurice Bucke's
Notes and Fragments
(1899) with transcriptions of other early manuscripts, Edward Grier speculates that Whitman wrote this before 1860 (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 4:1344). This manuscript may relate to "Song In Poem of kisses" (uva.00302).