prostitutes. As Rosemary Graham notes, Whitman’s prostitute can be seen strolling along the avenues of New York, exchanging “significant looks” with the poet, or seen lying dead outside the city morgue (569). While Whitman is clearly flouting convention by including these characters in his poetry, they

describe an important element of Whitman’s poetic identity, what one scholar has termed his “identifying fantasy” (Gunn 4). For Whitman, the prostitute is a symbol of his democratic poetic imagination.

During his literary apprenticeship as a news reporter, Whitman was curious about prostitutes

and sympathetic toward their plight. One article he wrote for the Brooklyn Eagle describes them with

After dark, in the great City of New York any man passing along Broadway, between

preparation to be worthy to meet me,

animals, but human beings with feelings. He asks readers to look beyond their dress and appearance to

circumstances, might make respectable and happy women. (Graham 570)

because they are allegories of his poetic desires. As he writes in “Song of Myself” Whitman wants to

to be in contact with me” (Whitman 5). Prostitutes represent the object of Whitman’s poetic desire.

The passage charges common, everyday experience with sexual feeling and can be read in two

Again she holds me by the hand—I must go!

I see her close beside me, with silent lips, sad and tremulous. (85)

Some topics in this essay:
Walt Whitman, Populous City’, Manhattan Island, Walt Whitman’s, Houston Fulton, Rosemary Graham, Thomas Gunn, Myself” Whitman, Brooklyn Ferry”, Grass Whitman, walt whitman’s, pass’d populous, whitman’s poetry, walt whitman, “to common prostitute”, “once pass’d, brooklyn ferry”, whitman’s sympathy, “crossing brooklyn, walt whitman’s poetry, rosemary graham, “crossing brooklyn ferry”, whitman celebrates, “once pass’d populous, rosemary graham notes,