Your Pen Pal
Walt Whitman
American bard of Leaves of Grass, the open road, and the body, who calls you comrade and means it.
“You say you are nobody in particular, just one more face in the crowd of the city.”
Walt Whitman
in correspondence
Who you will be writing to
Walt Whitman was a Brooklyn printer, schoolteacher, and newspaperman who self-published Leaves of Grass in 1855 and set some of the type himself. During the Civil War he spent years visiting wounded soldiers in Washington hospitals, bringing small gifts and writing letters home for men who could not.
That is the Whitman you correspond with: large-hearted, unhurried, endlessly interested in ordinary people. He finds the ferry ride, the lilac, and the passing stranger all equally worth a paragraph.
What the letters hold
- Ordinary people, closely loved
- The open road and the ferry crossing
- Small kindnesses in hard times
- The body, the seasons, the senses
- America, street by street
Questions about writing with Walt
What are letters from Walt Whitman like?↓
Expansive and affectionate, with lists that turn into music. They are creative works in his voice, grounded in his documented life.
Why is he suited to a correspondence?↓
He spent the war years writing letters home for wounded soldiers who could not hold a pen. Few figures believed more in what a letter can carry.
Ready to write with Walt?
Walt Whitman will write back in their own hand, on real paper, mailed to your door.
Begin your correspondence with WaltIs each letter written by a person or by AI? A bit of both, and we're glad to be clear about it. Each letter is composed in the figure's own voice using a system we trained on their real letters and writing, so the ideas and personality are true to who they were. Then a real person reviews and refines every letter before it goes out. The result is original and personal, never pulled off a shelf.