when i heard the learned astronomer

Walt Whitman, was born on May 31, 1819, in Huntington on Long Island. While Whitman was young, his family was terribly poor and this was an unhappy thought he carried with him the rest of his life. At the age of eleven, he finished formal school and started looking for work in order to help his family pay the bills. Whitman found a decent job at a local printing press and began learning about the printing press. This job later helped him in his writing career. A few years later Whitman found a job as a schoolteacher, which led him to unhappiness. He knew this job wouldn’t suffice so he needed to make to changes. After he left his teaching job, he began writing editorials in local newspapers in New York City. In the 1850’s, Whitman began writing Leaves of Grass, a collection of poems he continued to edit all the way up to his death. There were about 795 copies printed off. That being said, the plan did not go as well as he planned. Whitman received a lot of praise from fellow poet and friend Ralph Waldo Emerson through a five-page letter Emerson sent him. The poem “When I heard the le...