get the lead out: it’s noting, really: mark your calendars!

by Christine Swint

When I was in college I gained the reputation of being a poet of occasional verse, which is not to say I wrote only sometimes, but rather I wrote poems to mark specific events. If a friend were having a birthday, I’d write a poem about her, or in her honor. When the holidays rolled around, I’d write short poems to accompany gifts as hints to what the package contained.

Now that I’m older, I find myself returning to the custom of writing out of a desire to highlight significant moments in my life. The births of my sons, their rites of passage, the passing away of loved ones, and even the changing of seasons, both literally and figuratively. There is always a reason to write, if I think about it.

Below are a few examples of occasion poems you might want to work into your writing calendar. In your writer’s journal you could keep a list of friends whose birthdays you’d like to remember with a poem, upcoming weddings, anniversaries, historic dates, and times of year that have special meaning to you.

The trick is to find your own personal meaning in the occasion. As individuals, when we try to speak for everyone, we end up sounding like we’re writing greeting card poems. To write a universal poem, it’s important to reach inside for your own authentic way of viewing a person or an event.

  • Epithalamium, from the ancient Greek, meaning upon the bridal chamber, is a song in honor of a bride and groom. A beautiful example of a wedding song with a modern sensibility is epithalamium, by Matthew Rohrer. (You can also read Dana’s interview with Matthew Rohrer here.)
  • The elegy, from the ancient Greek elegos is a poem reflecting on life of someone who has died, the death of love, or on death and sorrow in general. It can also be a poem to mark the anniversary of a tragic event, such as Walt Whitman’s famous poem, When Lilac’s Last in the Dooryard Bloomed, written upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. In Christina Rossetti’s Dream Land, the narrator equates death of a friend with her eternal sleep.
  • Historical poems abound in English literature. Under the category of Labor Day on The Poetry Foundation there is The Factory, by Charles Simic, in which the narrator describes his time in an abandoned factory where workers once stood.

What sorts of occasions move you to write? Do you have any writing rituals that involve holidays, birthdays, weddings, or funerals? What about poets who are known for commemorating historical events? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

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