Saturday the 21st of March is World Poetry Day. Whether you adore the sonnets of Shakespeare or are a Limerick lover, you can enjoy all kinds of verse.
Poetry is in every kind of media. Music and songs, film, even video games all involve some kind of creative expression. Here at Sulets we’re looking to celebrate the works of literature.
UNESCO adopted 21 March as World Poetry Day in Paris in 1999, with the aim of supporting “linguistic diversity through poetic expression and increasing the opportunity for endangered languages to be heard.”
Henry Van Dyke writes:
“Every house where love abides
And friendship is a guest
Is surely home, and home sweet home
For there the heart can rest.”
We think this quote is so apt of a student house. Living with other students or even on your own in a student area can be so rewarding if you treat it as your safe place.
In the office we came up with a list of our favourite poems.
Our marketing manager Kelvin’s favourite lines are from Ulysses by Lord Alfred Tennyson.
“That which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Poetry is subjective and can mean a different thing to different readers. Kelvin appreciates this poem because it signifies changes in life particularly when life changes dramatically such as both Lord Tennyson and Ulysses. Poetry can be experienced in so many different ways depending on your stage in life.
I am the marketing intern, Rosella, and I am a huge fan of Edgar Alan Poe’s The Raven. Of course this poem has 18 stanzas so we have taken my favourite few lines :
“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
Merely this and nothing more.”
I am a creative writing student so I have had a lot of experience with the written word. I really like this poem because of the pace. Poe has cleverly echoed a heartbeat with the erie rhythm that is continued through the whole poem.
Poetry is meant to be read aloud and this poem is a perfect example of it.
Of course, we couldn’t mention poetry without bringing in a Shakespeare classic.
Sonnet 18 – William Shakespeare.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of may,
And summer’s lease hath all to short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When eternal lines to time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
In the spirit of world poetry day we wanted to see if our team could come up with some praiseworthy stanzas.
We tried to use a proper form of poetry. A limerick seemed to be the easiest as it has only 5 lines.
International Poetry Day
It looks like we’ve something to say
Get your house sorted with us
We’ve cleared all the fuss
Find somewhere you actually want to stay
After this we tried to write a Haiku.
Let us help you look
For a place for the next year
Or two. How about that?
Why is a Limerick different to a Haiku?
A Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry of three lines with no rhymes. Whereas a Limerick is a humorous 5 line structure with a strict meter.
Have you tried writing poetry? We’d love to hear it so let us know?
Photo by Trust “Tru” Katsande on Unsplash