When is World Poetry Day?
World Poetry Day is March 1st.
What is World Poetry Day?
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” and a human by any other name is still a person. Poetry speaks to deeply human needs, regardless of where they were born. So World Poetry Day celebrates poetry as a tool to communicate the most veiled parts of the human spirit without respect to culture.
Poetry transcends our differences. It shows us how all humans share the same feelings and the same deep questions. Curiosity is as deeply human as the fear of rejection and the need to be appreciated. A child studying a flower in Europe and an adult watching the clouds over Kilimanjaro are tapping into the same human properties.
But World Poetry Day is not just about shared humanity. We can communicate these ideas too! Poets enshrine our values in language. These words cross international borders and cultural barriers. English-speakers can read Polish verses or Thai poetry and see reflections of their own spirit and emotions.
World Poetry Day celebrates the ability poetry gives us to share the human condition across cultures.
Fun facts about World Poetry Day!
- The oldest poem in the world is a love poem from 3500 BC. We call it “Istanbul #2461.” The oldest epic is the “Epic of Gilgamesh” from the 3rd century BC, and the oldest English poem is “Beowulf,” from the 8th century AD.
- The longest poem is an Indian epic, “Mahabharata.” It’s 1.8 million words long.
- The U.N. created World Poetry Day in 1999.
- Assonance is a poetic term referring to repeated vowel sounds in non-rhyming stressed syllables. They have to be near enough to hear the echo, like in ‘symphony’ and ‘timpani’.
How to celebrate World Poetry Day:
- Read poetry from another culture. Try Cheslaw Milosz (Polish) or Pablo Neruda (Chilean). Or, choose a homegrown poet with a vastly different background or from an earlier time in your nation’s history.
- Look up figures of speech common to poetry, like synechdoche, apostrophe, hyperbole, and the difference between similes and metaphors.
What’s the hashtag for World Poetry Day?
Use #WorldPoetryDay on social media to share your adventures into world poetry.