(1819–92)
a major US poet who wrote about individual freedom, equal rights and sexual love, as well as about his love for America. Though many readers thought his poems were immoral, he had a strong influence on later American poets, especially the beat generation . He used the new form of ‘free verse’, in which lines do not rhyme. His best-known works are Leaves of Grass , Drum Taps (1865) and a collection of writings, Democratic Vistas (1871).