Even better, look to Camden, home not only of the house where he lived, but also the tomb where he rests.
The house on what is now Martin Luther King Boulevard attracts between 4,000 and 5,000 visitors from around the world per year.
And, though there are no visitor logs at Harleigh Cemetery, people stop there regularly to pay their respects; a Chilean film crew shot footage at the tomb last year.
The mausoleum "really is an incredible monument to himself," says Whitman scholar Tyler Hoffman, whose new book American Poetry in Performance: From Whitman to Hip-Hop will be published this year.
"Whitman designed the tomb himself with money he was given for other purposes," says Hoffman, an associate dean at Rutgers University in Camden. "I think he knew he was going to have a life long after death, and he wanted a place for people to commune with him."
Commune they do, often bearing messages. A few months ago, Oaklyn photographer Curt Hudson sent me shots he made of what look like letters, each neatly folded, placed under a stone, and left within the mausoleum gates.
My two recent visits turned up no such missives. Chris Mojica, manager of the 155-acre Victorian cemetery, says visitors often bring mementos, which are allowed to remain for what he termed a respectful period of time and then disposed of.
"It's amazing," Mojica says. "They leave books, poems, and letters. They leave rosary beads, flowers. . . . They leave pumpkins at Halloween."
Others bring pennies, says Antoinette Vielehr, executive director of the 110-member Walt Whitman Association, adding that pennies are significant because they bear the image of Abraham Lincoln.
