Every year on 21st March UNESCO celebrate their World Poetry Day.


UNESCO is the “United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization” – an agency of the United Nations that promotes education and communication and the arts

The decision to proclaim 21 March as World Poetry Day was adopted during the UNESCO’s 30th session held in Paris in 1999.

According to UNESCO, the main objective of World Poetry Day is to “support linguistic diversity through poetic expression and to offer endangered languages the opportunity to be heard within their communities”.

From their site:

Moreover, this Day is meant to support poetry, return to the oral tradition of poetry recitals, promote teaching poetry, restore a dialogue between poetry and the other arts such as theatre, dance, music, painting and so on, support small publishers and create an attractive image of poetry in the media so that the art of poetry will no longer be considered an outdated form of art but one.

UNESCO encourages the Member States to take an active part in celebrating the World Poetry Day, at both local and national level, with the active participation of National Commissions, NGOs and the public and private institutions concerned (schools, municipalities, poetic communities, museums, cultural associations, publishing houses, local authorities, etc.).

 

Ideas:

Choose a poem (or 2 or 3 or more). Each group is a TV production team. Their job is to present the poem on TV. What images will they use to accompany the poem? They could be still photographs, film, fine art, cartoon… . Rough out a storyboard showing how the images work together. Choose suitable music. Then complete the storyboard, or go on to produce the video and show it to the rest of the schoo, and parents.

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/teachersClassroomMaterials.do