Poets write various styles of poetry. They use their own personal experiences, ideas and creativity. Walt Whitman used all of these styles in his writings. He had experienced trials and tribulations his entire life. Whitman moved a lot during his childhood and this probably made his personality neurotic. There are many things he did to change the writings of future poets. Walt Whitman was born on May 31, 1819 in Long Island, New York. He was the second son of Walter Whitman and Louisa Van Velsor. His father was a home builder. The family consisted of nine children (Whitman 1). The Whitmans moved to Brooklyn when Walt was only four years old (334). At just twelve years old he began to learn the trade of a printer and fell in love with the written word, getting used to reading the Bible (par. 2). He had no formal education and read the Bible. it works if Sir Walter Scott, Shakespeare, Homer, and Dante (Feldman 438). Whitman had worked as a printer in New York City until a fire destroyed the printing district where he worked. When he turned 17, he became a teacher in one-room schools on Long Island. Whitman continued teaching until 1841, turned to journalism, and this became his full-time career (Whitman para. 3). Whitman founded a newspaper called The Long Islander, and later edited numerous Brooklyn and New York newspapers. He left Brooklyn's Daily Eagle to become the editor of the New Orleans Crescent. He experienced firsthand the cruelty of slavery in the slave markets of New Orleans. When he returned to Brooklyn, he found the Brooklyn Freeman and began to develop a unique style of poetry (Whitman para. 4). Whitman had a unique sense of writing styles. People say he had an "organic" style of writing Hebrew poetry and relies on the artifice of parallelism. Whitman's poetry contained elements of repetition (Unger 332). His characteristics also had a lot to do with his writings. People say he was a decidedly unorthodox intellectual and poet in his own way. He had a neurotic side. They described him as a bisexual, eccentric, elusive, power-seeking convert (332). Whitman's sexuality had some influence on his writings. He had some difficulty with his sexuality.