Explore the Craft of Writing Light Verse
Occasional poetry is verse written for an occasion such as a birthday, graduation, birth or any event really. It is normally considered Light Verse but it could loosely come under the genre of an ode. We usually associate an ode with lofty purpose and expect it to be long. Occasional poetry need not be so lofty nor need it be long, but the fact is, neither does the ode. (I am sure I am going against all of the poetry pundits, but this makes sense to me.) The purpose is near the same in that both are written in honor of a particular event or person.