World Poetry Day

World Poetry Day occurs on March 21 each year in the United States. Celebrate the day by taking pen to paper and discovering your inner Walt Whitman. Or find inspiration in a book of poetry by a great poet like Maya Angelou.

When is World Poetry Day?

World Poetry Day is celebrated on March 21 each year.

FAQs

To learn more about poetry and World Poetry Day, check out the answers to these frequently asked questions:

What is the definition of poetry?

According to Merriam-Webster, poetry is “writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm.”

Or, as Carl Sandburg once put it, “Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.”

What are the three types of poetry?

There are three main kinds of poetry: narrative, dramatic, and lyrical. However, defining poetry by type can be a difficult task as some poems include elements of each type. Here are the three general categories of poetry:

Narrative poetry – Narrative poetry tells a story. Good examples of this type of poetry are The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Dramatic poetry – Dramatic poetry is typically spoken or acted, usually with different characters. Examples of this kind of poetry are The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe and A Dream by William Blake.

Lyric poetry – Lyrical poetry is spoken in the first person and expresses personal emotions or feelings. You may be familiar with the lyric poems Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare, and I felt a Funeral in My Brain by Emily Dickinson.

Why is poetry important?

Writing poetry provides a creative outlet for expressing feelings and thoughts. Reading poetry connects us as humans and helps us find meaning in shared experiences.

What makes a poem a poem? video

What are the benefits of reading poetry?

Here are some of the benefits of poetry in our lives:

Facilitates learning and understanding – Poetry expands our vocabulary and encourages an understanding of ourselves and others.

Offers a new way of thinking about things – Poetry inspires creative thinking and creates mental imagery. It expands our world through thoughts and ideas.

Shares ideas and expresses emotions – Poetry connects us to our shared human experience through words, thoughts, and ideas.

Connects us to music – Song lyrics are poetry set to music.

Helps children learn – Poetry improves children’s reading, speaking, and listening skills. It can also establish a life-long love of reading.

Who are some of the most famous poets?

Here is a list of some of the most famous poets the world has ever known:

William Shakespeare
Edgar Allan Poe
Emily Dickinson
Walt Whitman
Oscar Wilde
Sylvia Plath
Rudyard Kipling
Maya Angelou
Robert Frost
John Keats
E. E. Cummings

Why do we celebrate World Poetry Day?

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) created World Poetry Day at its 30th General Conference in Paris in 1999.

The holiday’s purpose is to celebrate, appreciate, and support all poets and poetry around the world.

How do we celebrate World Poetry Day?

Here are some easy ways you can take part in World Poetry Day:

Write a poem – You don’t need to write an epic poem to participate in World Poetry Day. Perhaps start with haiku, which consists of three short lines that do not rhyme.

Attend a poetry slam – Take in a poetry competition in which participants perform their poetry before an audience and panel of judges.

Learn about famous poets – We’re all familiar with famous names like Shakespeare, Poe, and Dickinson. But do you know what made their poetry great? Find out more online or at your local library.

Teach kids about poetry – Help kids with reading and comprehension skills by teaching them poetry.

Post your poem online – Show off your literary skills online with a social media post highlighting your new poem. Remember to tag your post with the hashtag #WorldPoetryDay.

Fun facts

1.) One of the earliest works of poetry ever documented is the Epic of Gilgamesh from ancient Mesopotamia, found on tablets dating from the 18th century BCE.

2.) Some of the earliest sonnets were created by Francesco Petrarca, the Italian Renaissance poet, scholar, and humanist. His work is generally regarded as the model for lyrical poetry.

3.) The longest poem in the world is named Mahabharata. The ancient Indian epic poem has about 1.8 million words and over 100,000 lines.

4.) Here is some interesting poetry trivia to stump your friends. The fear of poetry is called metrophobia. If you suffer from metromania, you feel the compulsion to write poetry.

5.) The American Poetry Museum in Washington, DC was founded in 2004. It is one of the first museums in the world to specialize in works and exhibits of poetry and famous poets.

Jokes about poetry

I dug, you dug, he dug, she dug, and we all dug.
It’s not a great poem, but it’s deep.

How do poets enjoy nature?
They go on a haiku.

Where do poems come from?
Poe-trees.

In which form would the enormous poet always write his poems?
In Iambic Pentameter.

Why are poets always so poor?
Because rhyme doesn’t pay.

Why did the poet sneeze?
Because he had analogy.

A young man was in love with two women and could not decide which of them to marry. So he went to a marriage counselor. When asked to describe his two loves, he noted that one was a great poet and the other made delicious pancakes.

“Oh.” said the counselor. “I see what the problem is. You can’t decide whether to marry for batter or verse.”

Why did the boy poet introduce himself to the girl poet?
Because he wanted to meter.

Poetry Joke Meme

Poetry puns

What does the poet do when he’s frustrated with his fellow student?
Shakes peer.

An amateur poet attempted to write a novel.
Unfortunately, he failed because novels are for pros.

How do poets say hello?
“Haven’t we metaphor?”

What is the highest honor among Cowboy poets?
Poet lariat.

I just finished reading a book by a group of amateur poets…
The poems aren’t bad, but you can tell they’re not prose.

How does a poet sneeze?
Haiku!!!

During a severely cold winter long ago, a well-known American poet came up behind me and gnawed on my leg.
That was the only time I’d ever encountered Frostbite.

A poet writes in verse.
A backward poet writes inverse.

How many letters are in a poet’s name?
Usually, just a couple of Wordsworth.

What did the poet say to Luke Skywalker?
“Metaphors be with you.”

Did you hear about the poet who liked to dip his work in a moisturizer?
It was poetry in lotion.

Quotes about Poetry

It is a test [that] genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.
T. S. Eliot

Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry.
Cassandra Clare

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
Leonard Cohen

I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty.
Edgar Allan Poe

Every heart sings a song, incomplete until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.
Plato

Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Sayings

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is a painting that is felt rather than seen.
Leonardo da Vinci

Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.
Allen Ginsberg

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.
William Wordsworth

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, homesickness, lovesickness.
Robert Frost

If you cannot be a poet, be the poem.
David Carradine

A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer… He unzips the veil from beauty but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.
E. B. White

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought, and the thought has found words.
Robert Frost

Poetry Quotes

We make out of the quarrel with others rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry.
William Butler Yeats

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
G.K. Chesterton

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.
Robert Graves

Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky; we fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness.
Kahlil Gibran

Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity—it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts and appear almost a remembrance.
John Keats

He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.
George Sand

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.
Salman Rushdie

Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art.
Thomas Hardy

If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty.
Rainer Maria Rilke

Captions for Instagram

Eat. Sleep. Poetry. Repeat.
I speak fluent poetry.
Poetry is my first language.
She was poetry in a world that was still learning the alphabet.
Poetic wisdom.
She lives in the poetry she cannot write.
Poetry is dead. I killed it.
I am a poet.
Poetry is my therapy.
Never underestimate the power of a woman who can compose poetry.
My weapon of choice is poetry.
Modern poetry.
Leave poetry to the Poes.
I am only a poet when I am writing poetry.
Poetry is life.
Poetry in motion.
What would life be without a little poetry?
It’s a great day for poetry.
Fight evil with poetry.
I am absolutely, positively in love with poetry.
Read more poetry.
I’m sexy and a poet.
It’s a good day to poet.
Every day is poetry.
Choose poetry.

Hashtags

#WorldPoetryDay

#PoetryDay

#Poetry

Etcetera

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