About the Conference
When he published the first edition of Leaves of Grass
150 years ago, Walt Whitman created more than a new poetic
form and voice. He also created a new place--or, at least,
he imagined what kind of a place America was, and could be.
His poetry was rooted in specific landscapes--the shores
of Long Island, the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn, the
plains and forests of the West--but it transformed these landscapes
into the seedbeds of a democratic nation that was yet to come.
The English Department at Rutgers in Camden, the city of
Whitman’s final home, in cooperation with the Mid-Atlantic
Regional Center for the Humanities at Rutgers-Camden, invites
you to a conference celebrating the sesquicentennial of Whitman’s
great song and the sense of place that Whitman brought to
his work and to American poetry.
Invited speakers will include Ed Folsom, Ted Genoways, Joann
Kreig, Bill Pannapacker, and Ken Price.
A concert of Whitman's poetry set to music will be performed
by Martin Dillon.
Conference attendees will have the opportunity to tour the
Walt Whitman House in Camden and The
Whitman Arts Center, and to take the famous ferry ride
between Philadelphia and Camden. |
