World Poetry Day 2026; March 21st.

 

FORUM: "Write a Poem Today." World Poetry Day 2026.The UNESCO first adopted March 21st as World Poetry Day during its 30th General Conference in Paris in 1999. Practiced throughout history, poetry includes various forms of language, expressions and signification. It is often accompanied by music and performed during special occasions. The universal nature of this artistic expression is shown by the number of elements linked to poetry on the Lists of the 2003 Convention, from the most recently inscribed Pasillo, an Ecuadorian musicalized poem, to the Lebanese Al-Zajal, inscribed in 2014, and the Ukrainian Cossack’s songs of Dnipropetrovsk region inscribed in 2016 on the Urgent Safeguarding List. Being one of the five domains of the 2003 Convention, oral traditions and expressions encompass an enormous variety of spoken forms including proverbs, riddles, tales, nursery rhymes, legends, myths, epic songs and poems, charms, prayers, chants, songs, dramatic performances and more. Oral traditions and expressions are used to pass on knowledge, cultural and social values and collective memory. They play a crucial part in keeping cultures alive. Follow the conversation with the hashtags #WorldPoetryDay; #21March, #Poetryforlife.

EVENTS: On Saturday, March 21st, at UNESCO HQ; The 27th Edition of World Poetry Day will be held. Several activities, public lectures and books fairs will be organized in the Caribbean; Africa; Asia; Middle East; North America; Europe and Pacific regions. Join UNESCO in celebrating poetry across the globe and keep your poetic heritage alive!; During the the World Poetry Day 2026; Participants will be able to celebrate one of humanity’s most treasured forms of cultural and linguistic expressions. This celebration will be an opportunity for each and every one of us to move into the living heart of ourselves and of the world. Register to participate!

Several major poetry and book fairs are scheduled for 2026, featuring dedicated poetry sections, independent presses, and readings. Key events include the Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair in London (April 25), the AWP Conference & Bookfair in Baltimore (March 4–7), and the Get Lit! Festival in Washington (April 17–19).

Major 2026 Poetry and Book Fairs

• On April 25th, 2026 - Free Verse Poetry Book and Magazine Fair (London, UK): A dedicated fair for poetry books and magazines with exhibitors and a gala reading.
• From March 4–7, 2026 - The AWP Conference & Bookfair (Baltimore, MD): A massive gathering for writers, publishers, and literary magazines.
• Get Lit! Festival (Spokane, WA): April 17–19, 2026. Includes various readings, workshops, and a book fair.
• From March 20–22, 2026 - The Virginia Festival of the Book (Charlottesville, VA): Features poetry, fiction, and non-fiction.
• From June 6–7, 2026 - The LitLit: The Little Literary Fair (Los Angeles, CA): A fair highlighting small and independent presses.
• From January 16–19, 2026 - The Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway (Galloway, NJ): Focuses on writing workshops for poets and writers.
• From September 20–28, 2026 - The Brooklyn Book Festival (Brooklyn, NY) -  A major literary festival with various genres.
• On October 3, 2026 - The Collingswood Book Festival (Collingswood, NJ):Offers multiple, specialized "book nooks," including poetry.

STATEMENTS: Statement from the UNESCO Director-General, on the occasion of World Poetry Day 2026; March 21st.

Poetry reaffirms our common humanity by revealing to us that individuals, everywhere in the world, share the same questions and feelings. A final suggestion about bringing poetry into your lives: don't analyze it, don't ask others to analyze it. Don't deconstruct it or try to make meaning of it.

ACTIVITIES: POETRY PAUSE.

The UNESCO is celebrating the power to question certainties in order to remain open to others, to welcome the world in all its diversity – all essential foundations for building peaceful societies. That is why the Organization stands by poets, especially the younger generation, to enable them to take full advantage of this literary form, and to support the publication of their works.“PROMOTE POETRY”.

PUBLICATIONS : You are invited to read:

The "ART OF POETRY'' - A poet can use the same theme, but in different words and the meaning would not change. There is a need to have art in society today. From the Journal of English language and literature. Read the full publication!

Contemporary Notions of Poetic Imagination in Poetry - These modes of creative imagination as discussed in the previous section include: Prosaic imagination, Pictorial imagination, Fancy imagination, Fancy-realistic. From the University of Waikato, New Zealand, the Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities.

ARISTOTLE ON THE ART OF POETRY - Expression of the poet, ' sowing a god-created flame '. There is still another way in which this kind of meta- phor may be used. From the Cornell University Library, Read the full book!

World poetry Day 2024; March 21st.

FORUM: "Keep your poetic heritage alive!" World Poetry Day 2024.

The UNESCO first adopted March 21stt as World Poetry Day during its 30th General Conference in Paris in 1999. Practiced throughout history, poetry includes various forms of language, expressions and signification. It is often accompanied by music and performed during special occasions. The universal nature of this artistic expression is shown by the number of elements linked to poetry on the Lists of the 2003 Convention, from the most recently inscribed Pasillo, an Ecuadorian musicalized poem, to the Lebanese Al-Zajal, inscribed in 2014, and the Ukrainian Cossack’s songs of Dnipropetrovsk region inscribed in 2016 on the Urgent Safeguarding List. Being one of the five domains of the 2003 Convention, oral traditions and expressions encompass an enormous variety of spoken forms including proverbs, riddles, tales, nursery rhymes, legends, myths, epic songs and poems, charms, prayers, chants, songs, dramatic performances and more. Oral traditions and expressions are used to pass on knowledge, cultural and social values and collective memory. They play a crucial part in keeping cultures alive.

Statement from the UNESCO Director-General, on the occasion of World Poetry Day 2024; March 21st.

Poetry, whether in prose or verse, symbolist, engaged in society or objectivist, has a unique propensity to make us perceive the world around us differently.On this World Poetry Day, UNESCO is celebrating the power to question certainties in order to remain open to others, to welcome the world in all its diversity – all essential foundations for building peaceful societies. That is why our Organization stands by poets, especially the younger generation, to enable them to take full advantage of this literary form, and to support the publication of their works. For example, we facilitated the participation of 10 young Caribbean authors in the 40th Marché de la poésie, in Paris in June 2023. At this poetry festival they were able to showcase their work, discuss it and meet publishers to assist in the publication of their poems.As part of our efforts to safeguard living traditions, UNESCO has also included a number of poetic forms on the Representative List of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity: the Hudhud chants of the Philippines in 2008; the Mapoyo oral tradition of Venezuela(Bolivarian Republic of) in 2014; the Eshuva, Harákmbut sung prayers of Peru, in 2011; and the Koogere oral tradition of Uganda, in 2015.Poetry is a powerfully living art, but it has also, through the centuries and continents, been the key medium societies have used to write their history and preserve the memory of their culture, as well as to record ancestral knowledge. As the Ivorian poet Bernard Binlin Dadié so aptly said in his poem “Tu dors” (“You sleep”), from the collection Hommes de tous les continents (Men of all continents), the poet is “the old watcher/who stands guard over the ramparts”, and has “in his eyes, the dawns of ancient times/And in his head, the song of future times”. The poet is that in-between figure who stands at the crossroads of a bygone past and a future yet to be built.This is why UNESCO is helping to preserve some of the most emblematic poetic texts of their time. In 2023, the Codex Manesse, a collection of medieval German lyric poems, the collection of Turkmen manuscripts of Magtymguly Fragi, and the stone inscriptions of Tsogtu Khung-Taiji, Prince of Khalkha, which are among the finest examples of Mongolian poetry, joined our Memory of the World Register, which aims to safeguard documentary heritage and make it more accessible to the general public.World Poetry Day is thus an opportunity for each and every one of us to move into the living heart of ourselves and of the world, to paraphrase the great Martinican poet and politician Aimé Césaire, in a gesture of peace as internal as it is universal.

Mrs. Audrey Azoulay; UNESCO Director-General.

EVENTS: Join UNESCO in celebrating poetry across the globe and keep your poetic heritage alive!

On March 21st at UNESCO HQ and in the regional offices will observe the World Poetry Day 2024; Participant will celebrate one of humanity’s most treasured forms of cultural and linguistic expressions because Poetry continues to bring people together across continents and is found in a myriad of forms throughout the world. 

World Poetry Day 2021, March 21

 

As a part of the global celebration, the UNESCO Creative Cities of Literature, coordinated by the city of Granada (Spain), will undertake a joint celebration themed “Reconnecting People". World Poetry Day is the occasion to honour poets, revive oral traditions of poetry recitals, promote the reading, writing and teaching of poetry, foster the convergence between poetry and other arts such as theatre, dance, music and painting, and raise the visibility of poetry in the media.


As poetry continues to bring people together across continents, all are invited to join in.

FORUM: "Reconnecting People'' WORLD POETRY DAY 2021,

Where would you like to be reading this #WorldPoetryDay?



UNITED KINGDOM: To celebrate National Poetry Day, The British Museum are taking a look at the diverse world of poetry. In fact, this post alludes to the form of a haiku: 5 poems inspired by objects, 7 poems on objects, and 5 miscellaneous poetry-based nuggets from the Museum.

5 poems inspired by objects: You might have heard of John Keats being inspired by various Greek antiquities in the Museum to write his Ode on a Grecian Urn. Or that the statue of Ramesses II in Room 4 has an intimate connection with Shelley’s Ozymandias. It’s also a bit of an epic – so enjoy!

EXHIBIT: This Chinese painted scroll – ‘Reading in the Autumn Forest’ – transports us to the forest near Mount Baiyue (noe Mount Qiyun) in the east of China.

PALESTINE: By paying tribute to the men and women whose only instrument is free speech, who imagine and act, UNESCO recognizes in poetry its value as a symbol of the human spirit’s creativity.