National Poetry Day this year is on Thursday 28 September 2017. It’s fast approaching!
National Poetry Day is organised by the Forward Arts Foundation, and is an annual celebration that inspires people throughout the UK to enjoy, discover and share poems. Everyone is invited to join in. This year’s theme is “Freedom”.
Go to the NPD website to get details of how to join in, posters, bookmarks, and other resources; if you’re celebrating in school, take a look at their Toolkit for Schools or free teaching resources for inspiration.
Under Poetry Resources on this site you will find details about the National Poetry Ambassadors if you’d like one to visit your school or event.
Here is a poem that celebrates Freedom to be getting on with!
The Darkling Thrush
Thomas Hardy
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
Poetry Roundabout 