Online Program: Passwords: Whitman in My Life with Mark Doty

In celebration of his new prose book, What Is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life, poet Mark Doty explores the many ways in which Walt Whitman revolutionized American poetry—including writing from a position of gender fluidity, initiating a radically new relation between poet and audience, and writing the first explicitly same-sex love poems in English since the Renaissance—as well as some of the poet’s unique quirks. Highlighting the brilliant, surprisingly modern craft strategies Whitman used to make his poems perennially fresh and alive with energy, Doty will discuss Whitman’s lasting relevance for this moment. Posted on June 27, 2020, in honor of the 50th anniversary of pride in NYC.