Tomorrow marks 52 years since the assassination of John F Kennedy, an event that Alice Liburd Robinson holds in both memory and verse.

Like everyone alive for the signature tragedy of 1963, Mrs Liburd Robinson, 87, remembers where she was: at home listening to the news.

“People were crying,” she recalled. “I sat down and wrote a poem.” It closed with the lines: “He always strived to do his best / God grant him thine eternal rest.”

In a lifetime of creating verse, Mrs Liburd Robinson has commemorated many historic events, such as the fire that consumed the Bermudiana Hotel on September 4, 1958.

Other poems are religious, or celebrate important people in the community — such as her poem for EMTs, which is read each year at a special service in the Heritage Worship Centre.

“My mother has been saying poems ever since I was little,” said her daughter, Linda Philpott. “She has one for the Queen — when we visited England she had a mind to go down to Buckingham Palace and say it.”

Granddaughter Devonna Samuels, who teaches at the Whitney Institute, said the flair for poetry had been passed to her mother.

“I didn’t get it, which is unfortunate since I work in a school,” Ms Samuels said. “Granny will write poems for anybody, as gifts. My favourite of hers is from my first mother’s day.”

Her great-grandchildren, like generations of the family before them, know to call on “big momma” to ask for help with their school assignments.

Decades on, the tribute to the fallen 36th President still comes easily to Mrs Liburd Robinson.

“I love to say them,” she told The Royal Gazette, adding: “I love singing, too, but I can’t do it very well.”