Inspired by the popularity of poetry as a release and a relief during lockdown, National Poetry Day invites everyone in the North East and beyond to celebrate on Thursday 1 October by sharing a poem with friends, family and neighbours, online and in the places they live and work.
Hundreds of mini-events, including bubble-friendly #ShareAPoem get-togethers around the nation’s kitchen tables with cups of tea, will take place on the day, while thousands of schools and libraries across the nation, including The British Library, are putting on poetry readings and performances on this year’s National Poetry Day theme of Vision.
The opportunity to share poems by sending free poetry postcards featuring the words of great poets will be available via the TouchNote app in conjunction with the charity behind National Poetry Day, Forward Arts Foundation. The free offer, which opens on 24 September, will continue throughout October.
In a new partnership, English Heritage has engaged poets to unlock the Untold Stories of its most evocative sites, with writers on location from Tintagel Castle in Cornwall to York’s Cold War bunker, amplifying voices not often heard in the interpretation of history. This project, featuring new commissions, a competition, workshops and a public programme led by poet Jacob Sam-la Rose will run through Black History Month (October).
Caroline Moore, Creative Programme Manager of English Heritage said: “Poetry is a powerful medium that we can use to reflect and question, convey emotion and tell stories, and by doing so create new histories; in engaging us on so many levels, as listeners, readers, writers, performers, it is the perfect art form for English Heritage’s first Creative Programme project.”
BBC Local Radio stations will be celebrating five years of #BBCLocalPoets on the day by inspiring listeners to write their own poems, and by sharing films of poems commissioned by the BBC from leading poets Caleb Femi, Liz Berry and Luke Wright.
‘Super-teacher’ Kate Clanchy – whose account of using poetry to jumpstart children’s creativity recently won the Orwell Prize – will be sharing her secrets over the week of National Poetry Day, in four free online Poetry Possibility sessions hosted by Forward Arts Foundation, featuring the poets Raymond Antrobus and Peter Kahn.
The highlight will be a Young Poets’ Showcase on Instagram Live, starring six young poets from the UK and US. The showcase will be the centrepiece of the first ever 24-hour Poetry Lock-In, a day-and-night online celebration accessible via phone and screen, with open-mic opportunities, writing activities for all ages and special guests, hosted by leading BookTuber Leena Norms.
Booksellers will foreground 40 new poetry titles by the likes of Michael Rosen, Nikita Gill and Joseph Coelho, while the artist Chris Riddell will be leading a special online poetry Draw-In with Brian Bilston, whose witty bite-sized verses have won him the accolade of “poet laureate of Twitter.”
Poet Laureate Simon Armitage will be announcing the winner of The Laurel Prize, a new award for the best collection of poetry on an environmental or nature theme. He has donated his £5,000 annual honorarium to help fund the prize, which is run by the The Poetry School and supported by partners including Landscapes for Life, The National Association for Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, where the prize ceremony will be live streamed from 2.15pm on 1 October.
Opportunities for online poetry engagement – including digital activities, lesson plans and invitations to write haiku about lockdown – project #haiflu on the National Poetry Day website – were crucial in fostering enthusiasm when schools, libraries and bookshops were forced to close in March; in the months since then, the number of Instagram posts tagged #poetry has grown from 40 million to 48 million, while visits to the National Poetry Day website over the same period increased by 160 per cent on those recorded in 2019.
Susannah Herbert, Executive Director of the Forward Arts Foundation, which has organised National Poetry Day each year since 1994, said: “2020 will go down as the year of bubbles and screens, as lockdown has confined us to our homes and vastly increased the importance of our neighbourhoods, while highlighting the ways we reach out to others.
“Poems give release and a relief from loneliness; the amazing #haiflu project delivered by poet Liv Torc at the height of lockdown in June encouraged hundreds of libraries and schools to note and share their experiences in just three lines of poetry. That explosion of citizen creativity continues to gather force, turning poetry moments into poetry momentum.”
This year’s National Poetry Day will have two aspects: a wide-ranging, far-reaching digital space with an innovative online programme, and an intimate local face, seen in the sharing of poetry with family and friends.
Susannah added: “We may think we miss big public events, but the act of gathering in small groups over a cuppa and a choice of poems reminds us that some pleasures will always be unbeatable. There’s no question the pick-me-up of poetry has made a powerful and positive difference to people during lockdown, and as a result, there’ll be more opportunity than ever to get involved in National Poetry Day, no matter where you are in the country, or how new you might be to poetry.”
Add your plans to the map at nationalpoetryday.co.uk/join-in/. And to find out more about National Poetry Day and its many books, events and resources, visit nationalpoetryday.co.uk.