“Walt Whitman printed 795 copies of the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855. About two dozen sold. In 2008, millions of copies of Leaves of Grass are in circulation around the world.”
– American Experience, Walt Whitman, PBS

“In typical Whitman fashion there all kinds of things in this notebook: little notations of what he owes people and he's got addresses and names of people and places that he has to go. And then he begins writing in prose. And what he's writing are ideas. He starts out saying, 'be simple and clear, be not occult.' He's looking for his voice. And at one point he says 'every soul has its own individual voice.' And then he has a line that I've always been fascinated with, it says, 'do not descend among professors and capitalists.' And he stops at that point and there a couple of blank pages. And then when you turn the page suddenly there it is. And it starts, 'I am the poet of slaves and of the masters of slaves. I am the poet of the body and I am … ' and then he stops. And in that moment where he writes 'and I am' I can feel the moment where Whitman senses that “I” that is going to become his main character in all of his poems. That “I” has come into existence. 'And I am.' And then he crosses those little lines out. And there's a little space. And then he writes the first lines that are going to get into Leaves of Grass. 'I am the poet of the body and I am the poet of the soul. I go with the slaves of the earth equally with the masters. And I will stand between the master and the slaves, entering into both so that both will understand me alike.' And there it is. Everything that's going to be great in Whitman is in those lines…”
– University of Iowa professor Ed Folsom