EDITOR’S NOTE
Dear Reader, My bedside table is precious real estate: only the most important possessions in my life earn a place there. On any given night you’ll find a half-finished knitting project, a family photo, a felted figurine of Jon Snow, and a large stack of books. The only permanent resident of that stack is a dogeared, well-loved copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. It hasn’t left its place since I was an undergrad, and I often reach for it when I can’t sleep. Reading it is like having a conversation with an old friend that pulls me back to center and allows me to drift off into sunlit dreams. Since I drew the volume out of The Strand’s stacks fourteen years ago, Whitman’s poetry and prose have had a profound…
