World celebrates World Poetry Day on March 21

CAIRO – 21 March 2021: On March 21 of every year, the world celebrates World Poetry Day.

Poetry is one of the forms of expression and a manifestation of linguistic and cultural identity. Since ancient times, all continents, with their different cultures, have known poetry. Poetry addresses the human values shared by all peoples. It transforms the simple words in poems into a great stimulus for dialogue and peace.

The idea to hold a world poetry day appeared during the Palestinian Spring of Culture Festival in May 1997.

During the Spring of Culture Festival, the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, poet Izz al-Din al-Manasrah and poet Fadwa Toukan launched an appeal to Director-General of UNESCO at the time, Federico Mayor, in which they demanded the necessity to name a special day for poetry.

In 1998, a number of Western intellectuals also submitted a formal application to the organization.

A World Poetry Day was approved after the 13th session of UNESCO, which was held in 1999 in Paris. It was decided to declare March 21 of each year as World Poetry Day. The main objective of this, according to the UNESCO decision, is to support linguistic diversity through poetic expression, and to provide an opportunity for endangered languages to be heard in their local communities.

Moreover, the purpose of this day is to support poetry and to return to the oral tradition of poetic evenings, promote the teaching of poetry and revive the dialogue between poetry and other arts, such as theater, dance, music, painting, and others.

Also, one of the aims of the World Poetry Day is to support small publishing houses and to draw an attractive picture of poetry in the media, so that poetry is no longer seen as an outdated form of art.

The day was previously celebrated during the month of October. At the end of the 20th century, the world celebrated it on October 15 which coincides with the birth anniversary of the Roman Argelius. Accordingly, many countries have preserved this tradition by celebrating the National Poetry Day, or the World Poetry Day in October.