Happy National Poetry Day!
A day dedicated to celebrating a love of poetry and encouraging children, young people and adults alike to engage with the medium, National Poetry day has been celebrated since 1994 and has ‘1.5 million people participation on the day’.
This year’s National Poetry Day takes place today (2nd October) and its theme is ‘play’. Some example past themes were ‘Refuge’ (2023), ‘Food’ (2004), ‘Stars’ (2012). 1, 2
How to take part
Forward Arts Foundation suggests five ways to take part in National Poetry Day:
- Enjoy – Read and enjoy new or your favourite poems, notice the poetry of the lyrics in the songs you like to listen to, consider words that capture your imagination when you listen to someone speak.
- Create – Make your own poetry! This can be created through writing (with a pen or on a keyboard), voice recording, music, images or movement (or a combination of these!).
- Get together – Celebrate with friends, family or with writing/poetry groups. Maybe you could attend an open mic event for example? Forward Arts Foundation has an events map you can use to find events local to you.
- Share – Post about what you’re up to on social media with the hashtag #NationalPoetyDay.
- Support – Check out the work organisations, such as Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE), Royal Society of Literature (RSL) and The Poetry Society, are doing and see how you can help and get involved. 2
Children and young people’s engagement in poetry
As National Poetry day is all about encouraging enjoyment of poetry, what do we know about how children and young people engage with it?
The National Literacy Trust shared some statistics from its 2024 research:
- Just under half of 8-16 year olds are engaging with poetry (reading, writing, listening to or performing poetry).
- Those who do engage with poetry identified significant benefits to their wellbeing, confidence, empathy and aptitude for learning.
- More children and young people who receive free school meals engage with poetry in their free time than their peers (32.6% consume, compared to 20.9%, and 18.3% create, compared to 11.3%).
- Only 1 in 6 young people aged between 14 and 16 engage in poetry in their free time, compared to 1 in 2 children aged between 8 and 11. 3
