News at Eleven: Our image of the bearded poet--

with his vagabond's hat and open Byronic collar, his walking-stick and swagger--is one of carefree independence. In the national imagination [Walt] Whitman strides down city street and country lane, or sits silently beside a dying soldier's bed. No matter how many his male companions, and how often he sought company, he remains--in our mind's eye--alone.

In fact, he wrote his mother almost daily and stayed close to his siblings. He lived with the former for most of his life and spent his last 11 years in a brother's home.

from The Washington Post: America's Poet as Brother

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