About this Item

Title: I heat the hot cores

Creator: Walt Whitman

Date: Between 1850 and 1855

Whitman Archive ID: nyp.00088

Source: The Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library. Transcribed from digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.

Editorial note: Whitman probably drafted this manuscript between 1850 and 1855, as he was composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. Words and imagery from the manuscript are similar to lines in the first poem of that edition, eventually titled "Song of Myself." The manuscript has been pasted down, so an image of the back of the leaf is unavailable.