The inaugural poem (cont'd.) ...

... well, I've now read it, thanks to Rus Bowden who appends it to a comment on this post.

I'm afraid it strikes me as, at best, rhetoric. But even as rhetoric it seems weak to me:

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

I simply do not find this coherent. Are we meant to contrast the second and third examples, who live by "do no harm" or "take no more than you need" with those who live by "love thy neighbor" or are they all meant to be contrasted with "the love beyond" that follows? And what exactly is that love, if it isn't "love thy neighbor as thyself" (which, by the way, is only half of the admonition).

Then there's this:

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what's on the other side.

This is not only incoherent - I am not even sure it is grammatical; the who is certainly problematic - and worse, it reminds me of all those "Why did the chicken cross the road?" jokes.

Poems are not just strings of words that sound nice (though these words don't sound particularly musical to me). The words are supposed to say something. They should be hyper-precise. These are hypo-precise.
So I have to respectfully disagree with Rus on this one - though Rus does seem to have addressed the poem qua poem. Miller and Gilmore, it seems to me, judge it more by extra-poetical criteria.

Finally, an inaugural poem is supposed to be about a process, not a person. So excuse me if, when it comes to cults of personality, I'm with Sam Goldwyn: "Include me out."

Bryan also comments: The Obama Poem.