American Experience

Walt Whitman

American Experience presents Walt Whitman, a two-hour documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Mark Zwonitzer (Jesse James, The Massie Affair), featuring Academy Award-winning actor Chris Cooper as the voice of America's first great poet. Pulitzer Prize-winning poets, novelists and essayists recite some of Whitman's most important works, and reflect upon his enduring influence.

Walt Whitman Preview

31s

On a hot summer day in 1855, a 36-year-old writer emerged from an undistinguished printer's shop in Brooklyn, New York, carrying a slim volume of his work. With his book of a dozen poems, Leaves of Grass, he was about to introduce America to a savior.

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