Do you toil at a dull government (or PR, or consultant) position by day while honing your artistic genius by night? Whether it’s the Great American Novel or the harmonies to the consummate hipster emo anthem, we know many DCist readers fit the bill, and you’re not alone. Poet Walt Whitman is one of the myriad of those who sojourned to Washington to work the levers of government before moving on to future fame, living in D.C. between 1863 to 1873. During that period he

published his poignant poems of the Civil War, Drum Taps, and his elegies to Lincoln, “O Captain! My Captain!” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” all while earning his living as a civil servant.

Since Washingtonians are wont to overlook any historical footnote, they’re celebrating with a two-month long festival called “D.C. Celebrates Whitman: 150 Years of Leaves of Grass,” held in commemoration of Leaves of Grass. (Which he did not write in D.C.) The events, which kick off next Tuesday with a poetry reading in Georgetown, include a dramatic reading of Leaves of Grass in its entirety, a walking tour of “Whiteman’s Georgetown,” a guided exploration of Whitman’s meditation, and dramatic readings of “O Captain, My Captain!” at Ford’s theater on April 14 and 15. Go check out the schedule and get your 19th century poetry on. All this leads us to wonder, when is the “D.C. Celebrates Longfellow” festival?