When someone dies or a couple marries or someone graduates or
gains an honor, it is natural to want to write a poem to register
the significance of the occasion. Poetry, after all, can go to the
heart of the matter without any apologies or fears; it can look
grief and joy in the face. Poems that stem from occasions tend to
be social acts because as humans we share occasions. Even the
solitude of loss may be bridged by the act of writing a poem others
will read and hear. When there are no notable occasions on the
calendar, poetry is always glad to celebrate the most basic of oc-
casions--the amazing fact of being. That something or someone
simply exists is, as far as poetry is concerned, an occasion not to
be taken for granted.

Poems mark occasions. The first occasion each poem marks is its in-
spiration. At a certain moment on a certain day a person was moved to
write a poem. What moved the person--a dream, a thought, a mem-
ory, a word, a story, the sight of a dog or car or photograph or plate of
spaghetti, another poem--may be subsumed in the course of refining
the poem. It is, after all, not uncommon for a poet to put a poem
through dozens of drafts. It is also not uncommon for the impulse be-
hind the poem to move in unforeseen directions: An aunt may wind
up living in Houston rather than Cleveland, a Buick may become a

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