America needs her own poems a machine readable transcription Walt Whitman Kenneth M. Price Ed Folsom Transcription and encoding Janel Cayer Jeannette Schollaert Kevin McMullen Nicole Gray Kenneth M. Price Brett Barney Ashlyn Stewart Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln University of Iowa The National Endowment for the Humanities 2014 The Walt Whitman Archive
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities 319 Love Library University of Nebraska-Lincoln P.O. Box 884100 Lincoln, NE 68588-4100

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 duk.00131 This manuscript probably dates to the early 1860s, as it appears to have been inscribed after the writing on the reverse side of the leaf (duk.00795), which contains draft lines that contributed to poems first published in the 1860–1861 edition of Leaves of Grass. Whitman, Walt "America needs her own poems, in her own body and spirit" Early 1860s MS 12mo 61 Trent Collection of Whitmaniana, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University Transcribed from digital images of the original. On the back of the manuscript are draft lines that contributed both to the poem ultimately titled "Thoughts [Of these years I sing...]" and to "Apostroph," the opening section of "Chants Democratic and Native American." Both poems first appeared in the 1860–1861 edition of Leaves of Grass. regularized name for infrastructure updated image names reconciled with EAD record blessed corrected editorial note checked, corrected added date info to bibl checked checked, changed two add insertions to add lassos, changed from ab to paragraph transcribed and encoded

America needs her own poems, in her own spirit body and spirit, different from all the rest hitherto—freer,, more muscular, than the any hitherto comprehending more, and unspeakably grander.—Not the importations, or any thing in the spirit of the importations aloof and in These States exiles;—not the superb, chronicles, faultless, and rich, perennial as they are and deserve to be in their native lands from of the past events and characters of Europe—nothing f not the current products of imaginative persons, with tropes, likenesses, piano music, and smooth rhymes—nor of