[ninenot]

Whitman 'revolutionized' verse.

OK. How?

[Borges]

He was the first truly American poet...not a hint of European influence. That loping incantatory verse doesn't really have a precedent in the subdued lyric poetry that came before him. And certainly not in the schlock that passed for American poetry at the time (Longfellow, Bryant). He redefined the form and method of the traditional epic so that it went from being a narrative of the heroic exploits of an individual but a heroic sensibility discovering it's sense of expanse. It was a unique voice and quintessentially American.