Celebrating Poetry in Canada and Beyond

Ottawa , March 19, 2004 —   Sun­day, March 21st, marks World Poetry Day, UNESCO’s annual cel­e­bra­tion of the art­form. This year, UNESCO will pay spe­cial trib­ute to Chilean poet and Nobel Prize win­ner Pablo Neruda on the cen­te­nary of his birth.

Koïchiro Mat­suura, Director-General of UNESCO, notes the impor­tance of poetry in mod­ern times: “In a world over­whelmed by noise and slo­gans, poetry brings us a dif­fer­ent way of telling its his­tory, with its dreams and its divi­sions, thanks to the diver­sity of the world’s languages.”

Closer to home, the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage is mark­ing the occa­sion by high­light­ing events accross the coun­try. See the Cana­dian Heritage’s World Poetry Day web­site for more infor­ma­tion: www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/special/arts/poesie/poesie_e.cfm .

Canada ‘s Poet Lau­re­ate George Bow­er­ing notes in his World Poetry Day mes­sage that the act of writ­ing a poem is a nat­ural reac­tion to a world around us: “I don’t know about you, but to me the most likely response to the world is to write some­thing about the world. I don’t think that writ­ing is magic. I think that it comes from the imag­i­na­tion. If you can imag­ine a world, you can write one, and if you work hard and enjoy your­self and write well, you will cre­ate a world.”

April is National Poetry Month

The League of Cana­dian Poets will cel­e­brate National Poetry Month this April. Estab­lished in 1999, the month is an oppor­tu­nity for poets, pub­lish­ers, edu­ca­tors and the gen­eral pub­lic to pro­mote poetry in Canada and Cana­dian poetry beyond our borders.

The League has cre­ated a “baker’s dozen” of poetry: a list of 13 essen­tial pieces of Cana­dian poetry in each offi­cial lan­guage for read­ers begin­ning their explo­ration of our country’s poetry.

“The baker ‘s dozen is meant as a start­ing place from which we can pro­mote Cana­dian poets and their poetry,” said Edita Page, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the League of Cana­dian Poets. “It’s impor­tant to the League to com­mu­ni­cate the rich­ness and depth of poetic tal­ent in this country.We’re the envy of much of the lit­er­ary world.”

The League of Cana­dian Poets has also cre­ated youngpoets.ca, a web­site designed for young peo­ple and edu­ca­tors to help intro­duce poetry to Cana­dian youth in and out of the classroom.

For more infor­ma­tion on the baker’s dozen lists and National Poetry Month activ­i­ties, go to the Cana­dian League of Poets web­site at www.poets.ca .