Seeing Whitman Through the Lens of Business

In an article at Business Investor Daily Daniel Allott discusses Walt Whitman's professional choices and progress as an example of best business and investment practices.

Walt Whitman is often celebrated as America’s finest poet. But it was a different story when he was alive.

Whitman (1819-92) was ridiculed and ostracized during his lifetime. His seminal work — “Leaves of Grass,” a collection of free-verse poems — was called by many obscene for its overt sexuality.

Even Whitman’s family was unimpressed with his work. When he brought the first copy home, his brother George dismissed it: “I saw the book — didn’t read it at all — didn’t think it worth reading — fingered it a little.”

But Walt didn’t care. He was writing for those who believed, as he did, that “whatever satisfies the soul is truth.”

Whitman had abandoned several occupations — printer, teacher, editor, shopkeeper and house builder — because he felt called to writing, in particular to writing poetry that explored nature and the self.

Whitman published the first edition of “Leaves of Grass” with his own money in 1855, then printed, distributed and promoted it himself. He knew the poetry was shocking, but he also knew that its bluntness was the source of its power. As he once said, “All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor.”

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