Occasional Poem

At first this might sound like “once in a while” as in “I write the occasional poem.” It sounded that way to me when I first heard it, but actually it’s a poem written to commemorate a specific occasion. My first duty as poet laureate of Amesbury Massachusetts was to read a poem at the inauguration of our new mayor. I wrote an occasional poem, “Three Firsts” for the event. The new mayor was the first woman, the first of her generation, and the first mayor to grow up here.

Occasional poems are often concerned with official events including wars, but not always. Frank O’Hara’s poem “The Day Lady Died” is written for Billie Holliday just after her death. Your occasional poem can commemorate anything from the Covid pandemic to a children’s birthday to the first time you did something such as landing your first axel (a figure skating jump). It can be written in any form. Sometimes people seem to think a poet laureate will always write a new occasional poem when asked to read at an official event, but that would the laureate promoting primarily their own poetry. Sometimes it’s right to read the most appropriate poem for the occasion and sometimes it’s appropriate to write a new occasional poem. As poet laureate, I’ve done both.

The Day Lady Died – Frank O’Hara

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday 

three days after Bastille day, yes

it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine

because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton

at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner

and I don't know the people who will feed me

 

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun

and have a hamburger and a malted and buy

an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets

in Ghana are doing these days

                                             I go on to the bank

and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)

doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life

and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine

for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do

think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or

Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres

of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine

after practically going to sleep with quandariness

 

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE

Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and

then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue

and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and

casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton

of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

 

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of

leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT

while she whispered a song along the keyboard

to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

 

Here is my poem “Three Firsts”. It’s a villanelle. More on that tomorrow.

Three Firsts - Inauguration of Kassandra Gove - January 2, 2020

On this occasion as we inaugurate

the mayor of the city of Amesbury — known as the town,

we have three firsts to celebrate.

 

Chosen by the young and old electorate,

she’s the first of her generation,

the youngest mayor we now inaugurate

 

and the first woman we congratulate

for reaching the mayoral renown.

As we have three firsts to celebrate,

 

there will be new issues to facilitate

for this first native daughter around

this occasion as we inaugurate

 

First millennial, first woman, and to aggregate

to three – the first raised in Amesbury town

we have today three firsts to celebrate.

 

Even though they are too many to enumerate

we wish the best to all the new town officers,

on this occasion as we inaugurate,

we have three firsts to celebrate.