If you are interested in attending our book club meetings or receiving the reading list, please contact the Book Club Coordinator, Sally Smith, by sending an email to the club or filling out the form at https://www.peninsulasmithclubca.org/book-club.
“Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman was originally published in 1855 and the author continued to rework and expand it until his death in 1892. Upon its initial publication, the Boston District Attorney and the New England Society for the Suppression of Vice worked to block publication of further copies/editions of Leaves of Grass, and got retailers and bookshops to blackball the book because it was far too sensual for proper folks. That's reason enough to delve into this classic and have a rollicking discussion with your well-read Smith friends!
There are a number of editions of this book. Kepler’s is stocking the “Deathbed Edition” from Reader’s Library Classics. Probably other versions will be fine. The book is a collection containing some 400 poems, so we agreed we’ll limit our “assigned” reading to just a selection:
Song of Myself
O Captain, My Captain
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d
I Hear America Singing
Beat! Beat! Drums!
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
I Saw in Louisiana a Live-oak Growing
I Sing the Body Electric
A Noiseless Patient Spider
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
Possible additional choices:
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand
O Me! O Life!
Mannahatta