Walt Whitman + Peter Doyle

Walt Whitman is one of the most celebrated poets in American history. With his book Leaves of Grass, he aimed to write the great American epic, and worked on revisions of it throughout his life. The homoeroticism in his work caused some to label it obscene, but others were deeply inspired by his sensual, earthy poems celebrating the human body and the material world. Whitman met bus conductor Peter Doyle, who said of their first encounter: “We were familiar at once — I put my hand on his knee — we understood.”