Elizabeth Alexander’s inaugural poem, “Praise Song for the Day,” doesn’t qualify as a great poem, but it might emerge as an important one. As a celebration of the commonplace and an exaltation of the personal over the political, the poem offers a distinctly American take on the concept of occasional poetry.

Americans, indeed, have never produced much good poetry written for or about specific historical events. While most other English-speaking countries have poet laureates who open and close legislative sessions and churn out verse to boost national pride or recognize public figures’ birthdays, Americans have not cared much for occasional verse. (The Poet Laureate / Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress works to promote the reading, not the writing, of poems.) Only three prior inaugurations have included poets: John Kennedy had Robert Frost and Bill Clinton summoned Maya Angelou and Miller Williams. None produced anything spectacular. Robert Frost composed the god-awful “Dedication” but, blinded by the sunlight, recited the far better “The Gift Outright” from memory. Angelou’s “On the Pulse of Morning” offered up a drearily multicultural untangling of American identity–“The African and Native American, the Sioux / The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek.” Of the previous three, only Williams’ staid, academic “Of History and Hope” qualified as a decent poetic effort.