If your idea of commemorating someone’s birthday with verse is screaming “You say it’s your birthday/well it’s my birthday, too, yeah,” then your friends and loved ones urge you to take a close look at this post – maybe it’s time to find some new words to let them know that you remembered their special day.

Birthdays are occasions for both celebration and reflection, and it is no wonder, then, that many poets have chosen to write verses that commemorate birthdays, whether their own birthdays or the birthdays of others.

Many poets take a humorous view of birthdays, like Dorothy Parker did in “Ninon De Lenclos, On Her Last Birthday:”

Taking an amusing and surprising view of aging, Parker’s lines are a jubilant celebration of the adage that “age is just a number.”

Other poets, however, are more reflective when it comes to the subject of birthdays. For R.S. Thomas, a ninetieth birthday celebration was bittersweet, as he wrote in “Ninetieth Birthday:”

For many poets, the occasion of their own birthdays is inspiration, whether it reminds them of their own mortality or of the blessings they have been given. One such poet is the Scottish bard Robert Burns, who found his own birthday cause to celebrate in “Sonnet on the Author’s Birthday:”

His blessings may not be material, Burns realizes, but his birthday is still cause for celebration.

The next time you are searching for that perfect birthday card for a friend or loved one, consider instead giving them a birthday poem – either one of these, or one of your own!