World Poetry Day

Written by The Reader, 21st March 2012

Earlier this month we celebrated World Book Day; now it's time to put poems of all sizes and stanzas in the spotlight, as today is World Poetry Day.

Back in 1999, UNESCO designated 21st March World Poetry Day. The day is intended to be a celebration of poetry in all its forms, coming as a recoginition of just how important it is to art and cultures across the world. It also aims to support and showcase the work of poets both old and new, promote the efforts of small poetry publishers and herald a return to the long-held tradition of reading poetry aloud - something which The Reader Organisation most definitely supports.

So to mark the day in the style that it requires, why not choose a poem and read it aloud and proud? The Reading Revolution begins with you!

If you're not sure where to start, or have so many favourite poems that it's hard to pick just one (we know the feeling), then why not dip into our vast archive of Featured Poems where you're sure to find something that suits - or perhaps even come across a hidden gem that you've never read before.

Alternatively, if you like your poems on paper, you can get your very own yours-to-keep-forever copy of Poems To Take Home, an anthology of well-loved poetry especially chosen by Get Into Reading group members, volunteers and TRO staff, featuring plenty of wonderful words to soothe the mind and stir the soul.

And just for World Poetry Day, we're treating you to another poem on the blog this week - a taster of Poems To Take Home (if you like what you read, you know what to do...), and a particularly good one to read aloud...

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

Gerald Manley Hopkins