In these two essays, one of America's most honored writers fastens on the interrelation of American democracy and poetry and the concept of selfhood vital to ea

The place of poetry in modern democracy is no place, according to conventional wisdom. The poet, we hear, is a casualty of mass entertainment and prosaic public

Intense, resonant, and deeply literary, this account of an American poetics shows how today's consumerist and conformist culture subverts the imagination of a f

In the midst of a crisis of democracy, we have much to learn from Walt Whitman’s journey toward egalitarian selfhood. Walt Whitman knew a great deal about dem