Event

Five Up on Walt will feature five people — poets and members of the Kelly Writers House community — each talking briefly about a Walt Whitman poem that has meant something to their poetry or writing practice. Part of Whitman at 200: Art and Democracy, a region-wide initiative organized by the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, with major support from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, to mark the 200th anniversary of Whitman's birth, this event will bring together writers from multiple genres and generations, each sharing and reckoning with the legacy of Whitman as a poet and as an American.

Whitman at 200: Art and Democracy is a year-long series of cultural events and artistic commissions generated by University of Pennsylvania Libraries and partner organizations to mark the bicentennial of Walt Whitman, America's “poet of democracy,” who was born on May 31, 1819. Whitman lived the last two decades of his life in Camden, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. In 2019 we recognize his connection to the region and his far-reaching relevance today.