Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1810 in a farming family on Long Island, New York. Due to the family's financial difficulties, he only attended elementary school for a few years and dropped out at the age of 11. Whitman worked as a handyman, apprentice, typesetter, and rural elementary school teacher.

Whitman began writing literature in 1839, writing short poems and participating in local politics. In 1842 he was editor of the New York Dawn newspaper. In early 1846, he was editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, where he was dismissed in January 1848 for publishing anti-slavery articles. He later served as editor-in-chief of the Free Man, but left journalism in 1840 due to political disagreements.

Starting in 1850, Whitman engaged in manual labor, as a carpenter and architect, and launched his vigorous poetry creation activities. During the Civil War, the poet voluntarily went to Parkway Hospital in New York to take care of him, and later served in the military hospital in Washington. In 1873, Whitman unfortunately suffered from hemiplegia and moved to Camden, New Jersey to recuperate. He died of serious illness in 1892.

Whitman's first collection of poems was "Leaves of Grass". When it was published in New York in 1855, there were only 94 items, including 12 poems. By the time it was published in 1882, the number had increased to 372 poems; when the American Civil War broke out in 1861, during this period, he wrote a "Special Collection for Drum" that truly recorded the revolutionary war; after President Lincoln was assassinated, he wrote "O Captain!", a sad expression of the American people's grief over Lincoln's assassination. Psalms such as "My Captain" and "Today's Military Camp is Quiet"; in the famous poem "The Mysterious Trumpeter", he optimistically depicts the free world in the future. Whitman is a famous American democratic poet. He praises democracy and freedom, embodying the American people's desire for democracy. He praises the people's creative labor. His poems give people a positive and energetic spirit.

The Chinese people are familiar with Whitman's name for a long time. During the May 4th period, the poet Guo Moruo praised Whitman as a literary revolutionary in his famous poem "Ode to the Gangsters".