May 2019 saw the bicentennial of the American poet Walt Whitman’s birth. Born in 1819 in Long Island, Whitman would radically challenge the poetic conventions of his time and open to the door to experimental and free verse poetry. Bursting onto the literary scene in 1855, his self-published collection Leaves of Grass captivated and repulsed readers in equal measure. Famed for his frank, sensual expression and queer egalitarianism, Whitman has had a profound impact on readers, poets and activists in the years since his death.

Whitman scholar Dr Kirsten Harris was invited to deliver a keynote lecture at the major British academic commemoration of the bicentennial: Whitman200, an international conference hosted by the University of Bolton. Bolton has a fascinating place in Whitman reception history due to a group of nineteenth-century enthusiasts who corresponded with Whitman and amassed a rich collection of material relating to him. Dr Harris’s lecture focused on this group of admirers, the politics of self-education and the spatial poetics of Whitman’s work. Dr Harris also contributed to Bolton Socialist Club’s rich programme of birthday events, running a creative writing workshop and delivering a public talk on the theme of “talking back” to Whitman. An article on Whitman’s reception in Britain was published in the Time Literary Supplement: “No Unsavoury Connotations: Walt Whitman and his British readers.”