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I am become the poet

About This Item

  • Title: I am become the poet
  • Date: Between 1850 and 1855
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: uva.00269
  • Source: Papers of Walt Whitman (MSS 3829), Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Albert H. Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia. Transcribed from digital images of the original. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the manuscripts, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: Whitman probably drafted this manuscript in the early 1850s as he was composing the first (1855) edition of Leaves of Grass. The first line in this manuscript matches a line in the "Talbot Wilson" notebook (recto leaf 38), and is similar in structure to lines that appeared in the first poem in the 1855 edition of Leaves, eventually titled "Song of Myself." The image of the poet navigating stairs also appears in what would become section 44 of "Song of Myself."
  • Related Item(s):
    • Draft lines written on the back of this manuscript leaf may also relate to the poem eventually titled "Song of Myself." See uva.00600.
    • See wwa.00581.
  • Notes written on manuscript: On leaf 1 recto, in unknown hand: "19"
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "I am become the poet." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 08 May 2025. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: uva.00269.xml (TEI)

Key

Textual Feature Appearance
Overwritten brown with strikethrough
Added inline purple with double underline
Uncertain gray with wavy underline
Supplied from another source turquoise with brackets
Metamark green with triple underline
Long deletion gray background with top and bottom border
  [begin leaf 1 recto] 19 I am become the poet of babes and 
  the little things I descend many steps—I go backward primeval My equanimous arms feet 209 I surround retrace things steps oceanic—I pass 
  to around not merely my own kind, but 
  all the objects I see.—   [begin leaf 1 verso]
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