The Significance of World Poetry Day

March 21st is World Poetry Day – a chance to celebrate the beauty, artistry, and possibility of language. Established by UNESCO, this international celebration is about poetic appreciation and artistic endeavor, but it’s also about more than this – it’s about uniting an increasingly fractured world.

In 2025, just like every other year since 1999, a series of events and initiatives will take place around the world. Each one is designed not just to showcase how magical great poetry can be, but also to demonstrate the tangible benefit it brings to us all, to our society, and to our world.

Poetry as a Bridge for Peace and Inclusion

The theme for World Poetry Day 2025 is Poetry as a Bridge for Peace and Inclusion. Like so many aspects of art and culture, poetry is a fundamental building block for identity, for shared outlooks, and for new ways to approach the world. UNESCO has highlighted how poetry can exist outside of international borders, forging connections between groups that might otherwise feel separated from one another.

The celebration aligns with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. In particular, the celebration promotes the goals of “Quality Education,” “Reduced Inequalities,” and “Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.” The idea is to reinforce the fact that poetry, creation, and artistic fulfilment are not privileges, gate-kept from the wider population. Instead, the are human rights, which all of us can enjoy.

Events for World Poetry Day

World Poetry Day events will be taking place right across the globe. For a number of years now, UNESCO has been building a network of creative cities – metropolises that utilize culture and creativity in their own development strategies.

This network is growing every year. In 2024, 55 new cities were added to the network, recognizing their approaches to film, design, music, gastronomy, and other forms of culture. In the literature category, cities added to the network included Bremen in Germany, Buffalo City in the US, Hobart in Australia, Iasi in Romania, Kozhikode in India, Kutaisi in Georgia, Okayama in Japan, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, and Taif in Saudi Arabia. Rio de Janeiro is also preparing to become UNESCO’s World Book Capital for 2025.

These cities will play host to some of the events planned for World Poetry Day, which include the publication of new works, the holding of educational programs and community initiatives, and collaborative events across international borders. However, events are certainly not limited to these cities.

Any institution or organization, anywhere in the world, can host an event for World Poetry Day. To find out more about events in your area, search for World Poetry Day 2025 and the name of your city, or speak to your local library team.

The History of World Poetry Day

UNESCO announced the first World Poetry Day back in 1999. It was not the first international celebration of poetry – October 15th had traditionally been used as an informal global poetry celebration, recognizing the birthday of the Roman poet Virgil. However, the UNESCO celebration, which is tied deeply to the issues and challenges facing our own global society, has become the primary World Poetry Day.

Back in the early years of the celebration, the aim was clear: “[to support] supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression and increasing the opportunity for endangered languages to be heard.”

Since then, the event has evolved, with each year adhering to its own theme. In recent years, themes have included “Vision,” representing the power of poetry in capturing the diversity of the human experience, and “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants,” which connected rich poetic legacies with the emerging poets of today.

A Universal Mode of Creative Expression

Poetry comes in many different forms from all corners of the globe. From age-old oral traditions, through tablets and scrolls, to today’s digital eBooks, there are countless ways to record, develop, and spread poetry to the masses.

And yet, despite the rich diversity of the art form, there is a certain universalness to it. It is a pure attempt to extend the potential of language, to bend and question its boundaries, and to express the inexpressible. It is a way in which humans – all humans – can understand the world around us, understand ourselves, understand each other.

We can describe something intangible, like love or longing, using plain language, but this description does not tell us how the intangible feels or how it can be experienced. Poetry does do this – it goes beyond mere description and becomes something sensory, something beautiful.

This is why all cultures and communities across the globe have their own forms of poetic expression. This is why a celebration like World Poetry Day is so important. It breaks down divisions. It shows us that we aren’t so different, after all.