National Poetry Day is the annual celebration that encourages everyone to make, experience and share poetry with family and friends. Each year the campaign highlights voices, words and stories to help bridge understanding in local communities across the country.
Each year, it generates an explosion of activity nationwide, with thousands of amazing events across the UK, – on doorsteps and at kitchen tables, in gardens and streets, in schools, libraries and public spaces both online and offline – all celebrating poetry’s power to bring people together.
The campaign starts conversations, it encourages love of language and, best of all, it’s open to absolutely everyone to join in. Whether quietly or noisily in rewarding and enjoyable ways. As the artform’s most visible moment, it showcases the ways in which poetry adds value to society.
With the theme this being ‘the environment’, we gathered the help from the volunteers at HEY Volunteering who came together to recite ‘The River Humber’ by the celebrated hull poet, Stevie Smith.
To discover more about the campaign, take a look at the National Poetry Day official website.
If you’d like to learn more about local poetry, don’t forget to also read our top local poets you should discover here.