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  "path": "/2026/04/18/whitman-traversal/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-18T04:25:38.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.themarginalian.org",
  "tags": [
    "culture",
    "politics",
    "books",
    "LGBT",
    "poetry",
    "Traversal",
    "Walt Whitman",
    "read article"
  ],
  "textContent": "This essay is adapted from Traversal. Sitting in the packed playhouse of the Bowery Theater on Manhattan’s Lower East Side one balmy evening in the summer of 1833 is a teenage boy who can barely afford the theater — he can barely afford his bread — but there he is, rosy-cheeked — an almost baby-like rosiness that would remain with him into old age — exhilarated by the spectacle on the stage, by having made the ferry crossing from Brooklyn in the warm salty breeze, by the triumph of having bought a ticket with his own money. He has just… read article",
  "title": "Walt Whitman’s Field Guide to Being Yourself: The Trial and Triumph of Leaves of Grass"
}