The Poetry Society

If you don’t know your stanzas from your verse, your rhyme from your reason then you’d better get with the programme, for poetry is in motion. There’s currently a bonanza in British verse, and the Poetry Society is key to its increasing popularity.

Celebrating its Centenary year, the Poetry Society has put together an array of events that will keep us engaged with the beauty of words and discover the poetic talent of the future.

October 8th is National Poetry Day, and the Society, along with the BBC will be hosting a free event at London’s South Bank, celebrating poetry heroes and heroines with live performances from John Hegley, Roger McGough and Dreadlock Alien  and showing archive treasures from the likes of Stevie Smith, T.S. Eliot and Dylan Thomas.

In attendance will be Lemn Sissay, Selima Hill and Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.
There’ll be interactive beachball haiku from Valerie Laws and the unveiling of the world’s first knitted poem ( knitters from New Zealand to Newcastle have been creating woolly letters which are currently being shaped into a 40 feet poem.)

This may all seem a far cry from dry classroom lessons in Larkin, which is how many of us were first introduced to poetry. But now attitudes have changed and poetry has all but shed its stuffy image. It’s now seen as an art form that is immediate, versatile and accessible.

There are an increasing number of poetry jams; such as Poetry Slam and Rhymes Won’t Wait, poetry competitions and events such as the recent London Poetry Festival, poems on the tube, performance poetry, the BBC’s very popular Poetry Season and a renewed interest in the lives of poets with films such as Sylvia – about Sylvia Plath – and last years’s The Edge of Love, on Dylan Thomas.

Here at Open we’ve launched Haiku Review, encouraging readers to send in their Haikus based upon a film, play, gig, exhibition, fashion collection or TV show that they’ve seen.

For poetry is truly democratic. And, happily, it’s stepped out of its Wasteland.

National Poetry Day, 8th October, 2-5pm at the Clore Ballroom, Royal Festival Hall, South Bank, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX.

For more information on the Poetry Society visit:
www.poetrysociety.org.uk