Poets have played an important role in writing for special occasions throughout history. [1] Poets were the earliest writers and their epic poems were highly respected. [2] Poets would be asked by royalty and leaders to compose poems for important events like coronations or inaugurations. [3] The tradition continues today with the United States appointing Poet Laureates through the Library of Congress to write poems for national occasions or memorials.

1. Every Story Matters
Poets and Poetry
Ken Ronkowitz

2. Before there was written language…
there were storytellers

3. Before there were stories written…

4. When stories were written,
poets were there…
The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek
literature are the two epic poems The Iliad and
The Odyssey.
Poets were famous and respected.

5. Poets in the Royal Court
were asked to write poems for occasions
Shakespeare with Queen Elizabeth I
The coronation Elizabeth II; the wedding of
William and Kate; the funeral of Princess
Diana

6. American Poets & Poems for Occasions
Maya Angelou
asked to read by
President Clinton
Robert Frost asked by President Kennedy
Richard Blanco and then Elizabeth Alexander were
asked to write poems by President Obama for his two
inaugurations.

7. U.S. Poet Laureates
appointed by the Library of Congress
Tracy K. Smith, Current Poet Laureate
The Poetry and Literature Center at the
Library of Congress
Juan Felipe Herrera
2015 - 2017

8. A poem written by Poet
Laureate Billy Collins about
the attack on New York City
on 9/11/01 & read at the
U.S. Congress.

9. Do you ever write poems for special occasions?
Have you ever paid someone to write the appropriate words for you?

10. And do you ever write poems for special occasions?
Or do you hire someone to write the appropriate words for you?
 The custom of
sending greeting
cards can be traced
back to the ancient
Chinese, who
exchanged messages
of good will to
celebrate the New
Year, and to the
early Egyptians, who
conveyed their
greetings on papyrus
scrolls.
 By the early 15th
century, handmade
paper greeting cards
were being
exchanged in
Europe, including
handmade paper
Valentines.

11. Poets are always inspired, are always
composing and constantly revising.
1. Inspiration to write a poem. What prompts you to write?
2. Composing the poem
3. Revising the poem
4. Getting your words out into the world
a) Give it to someone else to read
b)Read it out loud to others.
c) Publish it (online, magazines, books)
TheProcess

12. What makes a poem a POEM?
Are either of these poems?
In Winter Haven
I took a room in a motel
on the edge of an orange grove.
Next door was a restaurant,
with orange trees, full of fruit,
spreading over its parking lot.
I went in for dinner, and after dinner,
I found a plastic orange reamer.
And a knife and went back
to the edge of the grove.
I picked several oranges,
squeezed them,
poured the juice into a tall glass.
I had what I wanted.
It had been a long day.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not
travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and looked
down one as far as I could to where it bent in the
undergrowth. Then took the other, as just as fair and having
perhaps the better claim. Because it was grassy and wanted
wear. Though as for that the passing there had worn them
really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had
trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet
knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever
come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages
and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took
the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.