Walt Whitman was not like any other poet of his time period. Walt Whitman broke the boundaries of what was common in the way poets wrote back then.Whitman made use of imagery throughout his writing. He also spoke openly death, sexuality and suprisingly prostitution. Whitman did all this by writing using free verse. Free verse is a term describing various styles of  poetry that are written without using strict meter, rhythm, or rhyme, but still recognizable as poetry by virtue of complex patterns of one sort or another that readers will perceive to be part of a coherent whole.

Whitman’s romantic and sexual attraction towards other men is not disputed. However, whether or not Whitman had sexual relationships with men has been the subject of some critical disagreement.  Evidence is attributed to fellow poets George Sylvester Viereck and Edward Carpenter, neither of whom entrusted those accounts to print themselves. Though scholars  supported the view of Whitman as actively homosexual, this aspect of his personality is not brought out when his works are presented in educational settings. The Whitmans significant other may have been Peter Doyle, a bus conductor whom he met around 1866. They were inseparable for several years. Interviewed in 1895, Doyle said: “We were familiar at once — I put my hand on his knee — we understood. He did not get out at the end of the trip — in fact went all the way back with me.” A more explicit account comes from Oscar Wilde. Wilde met Whitman in America in 1882, and wrote to the homosexual rights activist George Cecil Ives that there was “no doubt” about the great American poet’s sexual orientation — “I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips,” he boasted. How do you feel about that?