"America's greatest poet, hobbled by disease and a series of paralytic strokes, lies in a paper-strewn bedroom in Camden, New Jersey. A steady stream of admirers from Canada and Britain dote on him, believing that he is a prophet with mystical powers. But as months roll by and death creeps closer, a young helper, who keeps a private record of everything the patient says, arrives at a much different understanding of the famous and notorious man. To Horace Traubel, four decades Whitman's junior, the Good Gray Poet is a person tortured by the fact that he cannot reveal the deepest personal secrets that are nonetheless the wellspring of his writing.".