Walt Whitman was a splashy, egotistical, windbaggy poet and chatman from first to last. A new book of late conversations with a young admirer called Horace Traubel, Walt Whitman Speaks (Carcanet, £14.99; Tablet price £13.49), enables us to listen in to his wondrous burblings as seldom before. As cosmos-centred as he is self-centred, aswirl with spiritual and carnal longings, sharp with a put-down, exalted in his rambling earthiness, he is a delight to eavesdrop upon.