Review of Specimen Days [The Inauguration] by Walt Whitman

Specimen Days [The Inauguration] by Walt Whitman was offered by Poets.org's Poem-A-Day on January 21, 2013.  January 20 was Inauguration Day for President Obama (the 21st being Martin Luther King, Jr Day and the for show inauguration of the president, the 20th being a Sunday), so this prose-poem by Mr. Whitman is apropos.  The poem is particularly apropos, in fact, as Whitman sings of his president and hero, Abraham Lincoln, without whom there certainly would be no President Obama.

I have a dogeared, marked-up old copy of Leaves of Grass, one of my favorite books of poetry.  A dream of mine is to one day have my own poetry published under the title Steves of Grass.  However, while I am obviously a fan of Whitman, I feel that Specimen Days is not his best work.  It is more editorial than poem.