The most significant parts of the Libraries’ Whitman collection, which will be highlighted in the exhibition, are the personal letters and other materials related to Whitman’s relationship with Anne Burrows Gilchrist and her family, Farrington says. Whitman is buried in Camden’s Harleigh Cemetery, in a tomb he had specially built for himself and members of his family. 23, will focus on the last 20 years of his life when he was living in Camden, first with his brother George, and then in the little house he bought for himself on Mickle Street. Lynne Farrington, a senior curator of special collections in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts and project director for “Whitman at 200”Īnd starting May 28, a major exhibition, “ Whitman Vignettes: Camden and Philadelphia,” will be on view at the Libraries, drawing upon the collection’s important trove of hundreds of books, manuscripts, documents, correspondence, photographs, and objects by and about Whitman. His writings reflecting on the importance of the natural world to human life find their echo today in the environmental movement, because for him the natural and spiritual realms were intermingled.

The main Whitman event on Penn’s campus takes place this weekend, March 29-30, a national symposium “Whitman at 200: Looking Back, Looking Forward,” which will feature panels, student projects, and a pop-up exhibition of his works from the Libraries’ Whitman Collection. One of those student presentations will be from the Penn Manuscript Collective, a group of undergraduates who meet on Fridays at the Kislak Center to transcribe original rare documents.

And the duo, along with Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, will participate in the main birthday celebration on May 31 at City Hall.

Singer-songwriter Patti Smith and her daughter, Jesse Paris Smith, will perform a concert exploring Whitman through word and song at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on May 30. The calendar of events continues to expand, as more institutions and organizations come on board, with many of the activities scheduled around Whitman’s May 31 birthday. The effort to create “Whitman at 200” “was collaborative from the very beginning,” Farrington says. “We are reaching across boundaries, trying to create programming that intersects with the many ways in which one can interact with Whitman,” says Lynne Farrington, a senior curator of special collections in the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts and project director for “Whitman at 200.” “By building connections within Penn and beyond, we are working to bring people together to have conversations about Whitman that might not otherwise happen.” The Penn Libraries holds an extensive collection of original and rare manuscripts by Whitman, including handwritten letters and drafts of poems.

A song about myself poem