<P> Not all responses were negative, however . Critic William Michael Rossetti considered Leaves of Grass a classic along the lines of the works of William Shakespeare and Dante Alighieri . A woman from Connecticut named Susan Garnet Smith wrote to Whitman to profess her love for him after reading Leaves of Grass and even offered him her womb should he want a child . Though he found much of the language "reckless and indecent", critic and editor George Ripley believed "isolated portions" of Leaves of Grass radiated "vigor and quaint beauty". </P> <P> Whitman firmly believed he would be accepted and embraced by the populace, especially the working class . Years later, he would regret not having toured the country to deliver his poetry directly by lecturing . "If I had gone directly to the people, read my poems, faced the crowds, got into immediate touch with Tom, Dick, and Harry instead of waiting to be interpreted, I'd have had my audience at once," he claimed . </P> <P> Leaves of Grass's status as one of the most important collections of American poetry has meant that over time various groups and movements have used it, and Whitman's work in general, to further their own political and social purposes . For example: </P> <Ul> <Li> In the first half of the 20th century, the popular Little Blue Book series introduced Whitman's work to a wider audience than ever before . A series that backed socialist and progressive viewpoints, the publication connected the poet's focus on the common man to the empowerment of the working class . </Li> <Li> During World War II, the American government distributed for free much of Whitman's poetry to their soldiers, in the belief that his celebrations of the American Way would inspire the people tasked with protecting it . </Li> <Li> Whitman's work has also been claimed in the name of racial equality . In a preface to the 1946 anthology I Hear the People Singing: Selected Poems of Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes wrote that Whitman's "all - embracing words lock arms with workers and farmers, Negroes and whites, Asiatics and Europeans, serfs, and free men, beaming democracy to all". </Li> <Li> Similarly, a 1970 volume of Whitman's poetry published by the United States Information Agency describes Whitman as a man who will "mix indiscriminately" with the people . The volume, which was presented for an international audience, attempted to present Whitman as representative of an America that accepts people of all groups . </Li> </Ul>

Preface to the first edition of leaves of grass