National Poetry Day: I Choose Poetry!

Posted on October 7, 2021October 2, 2021 by Liz Brownlee

It’s National Poetry Day today – the most exciting day in the poetry calendar, and I’m so proud to be a National Poetry Day ambassador, to let everyone possible in on the secrets of poetry. This is the poem I have given NPD this year on the theme of ‘CHOICE’.

I Choose Poetry

The softness of the lemon in a primrose

the nodding of a bluebell from a bee

the silence in the gaps of a bird’s song

the library of the creatures in a tree

the plumping of a plum in the sunshine

the crazy path an ant left in the grass

the fleeting blue-pink-orange evening

the moment when the sky darks for the stars

the tingle in the thrill of the music

the bounce of the branch as bird flies free

the smell of the earth rise in the rainfall

the things I keep by choosing poetry

Liz Brownlee

National Poetry Day 2018

Liz Brownlee Performs her poem, Panda, #National Poetry Day

Posted on October 4, 2018October 3, 2018 by Liz Brownlee

Another poem with an association with Change, season and ideas, for National Poetry Day.

National Poetry Day 2018

Gerard Benson and River Song, for #NationalPoetryDay

Posted on October 4, 2018October 3, 2018 by Liz Brownlee

The wonderful Gerard Benson and River Song, for National Poetry Day’s theme of change – you will never tire of listening to his voice.

National Poetry Day 2018

#NationalPoetryDay; Change. Slavka Liskova reads Susan Richardson’s Snow Geese Solstice.

Posted on September 28, 2018 by Liz Brownlee

Susan Richardson’s fabulous poem always sends thrills up and down my arms – here is the change of spring, and summer too, with the snow geese. Susan’s book – Words the Turtle Taught Me is full of wonderfully atmospheric poems on the natural world. Read by actress, Slavka Liskova

National Poetry Day 2018

National Poetry Day, 4th October

Posted on September 15, 2018 by Liz Brownlee

Forward Arts Foundation, National Poetry Day

The Forward Arts Foundation is a charity committed to widening poetry’s audience, honouring achievement and supporting talent.

National Poetry Day is an annual celebration that inspires people throughout the UK to enjoy, discover and share poems. Everyone is invited to join in. National Poetry Day will take place on Thursday 4th October 2018 and this year’s theme is “Change”.

Go to the NPD website to get details of how to join in, posters, bookmarks, and if you’re celebrating in school, take a look at their Toolkit for Schools for inspiration.

Make sure you use #NationalPoetryDay on Twitter and Websites!

National Poetry Day Ambassadors are a crack corps of inspiring poets who take poetry to new and young audiences – in schools, in bookshops, in libraries, in public squares – all year round.

Each one of them has contributed a new poem on the 2018 theme of Change, and chosen a poem to accompany it, for a special National Poetry Day collection published by Otter-Barry books. It’s a beautiful thing. You can buy it here.

If you want to find this information again, it is under Poetry Resources in the menu at the top and top of the side of this site.

WIN the POETRY BOOKS Recommended for National Poetry Day!!!

Enter this competition to win a set of these wonderful new poetry books, all recommended for National Poetry Day:

Happy Poems by Roger McGough draws together a fantastic collection of upbeat poetry from the very best classic and contemporary poets; Apes to Zebras contains shape poems by favourite children’s poets Roger Stevens, Liz Brownlee and Sue Hardy-Dawson, certain to entrance young readers; Rachel Rooney’s new collection A Kid in My Class features stunning illustrations by former UK Children’s Laureate Chris Riddell, and every type of kid will find themselves in its pages; The Same Inside is a collection to encourage empathy, with poems covering friendship and togetherness, difference, tolerance, bullying, by Liz Brownlee, Matt Goodfellow and Roger Stevens; while The Song of the Dodo by Hilda Offen is a vibrant and accessible collection full of funny, thoughtful and surprising poems.

Plus, the prize package will also contain Poetry for a Change, the first ever National Poetry Day anthology. It features new poems by the National Poetry Day Ambassadors, Deborah Alma, Liz Brownlee, John Canfield, Joseph Coelho, Sally Crabtree, Jan Dean, Marjori Lotfi Gill, Chrissie Gittins, Matt Goodfellow, Remi Graves, Sophie Herxheimer, Michaela Morgan, Brian Moses, Cheryl Moskowitz, Abigail Parry, Rachel Piercey, Rachel Rooney, Joshua Seigal, Roger Stevens, Jon Stone, and Kate Wakeling. Each poet has chosen a favourite poem to share too, so you’ll also find classics as well as suggestions for further reading (and writing), making this a collection to enjoy all year round.

To enter email poetryday@forwardartsfoundation.org with the subject Poetry for a Change World Book Day NPD competition. The deadline is 14th September 2018.

National Poetry Day 2018

National Poetry Day is on 4th October – Are you Planning an Event?

Posted on August 14, 2018August 14, 2018 by Liz Brownlee

Are you ready to celebrate #poetry on #nationalpoetryday? Are you putting on an event? If so, National Poetry Day would like to hear from you! Post the information at https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/join-in/ or email poetryday@forwardartsfoundation.org #poetryforachange

National Poetry Day 2018

Otter-Barry Books to Publish Official National Poetry Day Anthology

Posted on May 14, 2018May 11, 2018 by Liz Brownlee

Independent publisher Otter-Barry Books will be publishing Poetry For a Change, the official children’s anthology for National Poetry Day on 4th October.

National Poetry Day encourages everyone to read, share and enjoy poems on one special day each year.

There are a number of National Poetry Day Ambassadors who do their very best to spread the joy on NPD and throughout the week of NPD – and indeed, throughout the year. Those ambassadors have each written a poem and chosen a poem on the theme of ‘change’ to go in the book, which is beautifully illustrated by Chie Hosaka.

See some of the beautiful poems and illustrations on the Otter-Barry link.

Freedom Poem, National Poetry Day 2017

#NationalPoetryDay Freedom Poem by Philip Ardagh

Posted on September 28, 2017September 28, 2017 by Liz Brownlee

TO BE BORN FREE

‘A Small Poem For A Big Subject’

To be born free

Is how it should be.

It should be the norm,

The standard,

The default setting.

To be born free

Is how it should be.

It should be the usual,

The convention,

The constant.

To be born free

Is how it should be.

As it is for me.

Free to talk,

Free to walk,

Free to balk,

At the lies

Our leaders

Feed us.

Not to be thrown

In jail

For an email.

Not to be the property

Of another

Not to be silenced

Gagged

Imprisoned

Raped.

To be born free

Is how it should be.

Freedom Poem, National Poetry Day 2017

#NationalPoetryDay – Sue Hardy Dawson’s Freedom Poem, Absence

Posted on September 28, 2017September 28, 2017 by Liz Brownlee

Sue Hardy-Dawson is a poet and illustrator, her latest book, Where Zebras go, can be bought here.

#NationalPoetryDay Poem by Shauna Darling Robertson

NO UNAUTHORISED VEHICLES

(poem for a sign on a gate)

So authorise my vehicle.

Then rubber-stamp my car.

I’m done with steering oh-so-near,

I long to motor far.

But every time I venture out,

I’m halted by a sign:

Keep Out. Be Gone. Just Go Away.

This Road is Mine, All Mine.

But sir, it’s you who’ve made this

the road where I must go,

by putting up your tempting sign –

the one that tells me, NO.

Freedom Poem, National Poetry Day 2017

#NationalPoetryDay Freedom Poem Animation – Skylark

Posted on September 28, 2017September 28, 2017 by Liz Brownlee

Freedom Poem, National Poetry Day 2017

#NationalPoetryDay Free as the Wind by Liz Brownlee

Posted on September 28, 2017September 28, 2017 by Liz Brownlee

Here’s my poem for National Poetry Day up on the National Poetry Day Website – all the other National Poetry Day Ambassadors have poems there too, also available as a FREE anthology, here.