Walt Whitman’s Field Guide to Being Yourself: The Trial and Triumph of Leaves of Grass

The essay titled "Walt Whitman’s Field Guide to Being Yourself: The Trial and Triumph of Leaves of Grass" is adapted from Traversal. It describes a teenage boy in the Bowery Theater on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the summer of 1833. He is excited to be at the theater, having made the ferry crossing from Brooklyn and purchased a ticket with his own money, despite his financial struggles.