It’s World Poetry Day today, everybody shout, “Hurray!”

Ok, so it’s not up there with “I wandered lonely as a cloud…”, but it does rhyme! Yes, today is World Poetry Day, first established in 1999 by UNESCO to celebrate the linguistic diversity and creativity that poems can offer.

We’ve got tons in the way of poetry here at UWTSD Swansea. As well as all the poetry books on our shelves, we have online access to thousands of poems via our database Literature Online. Just click the link to access the database and see what you can find!

This year, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is marking World Poetry Day with an online memorial of First World War poems. They’d like members of the public to get involved by recording themselves reading a favourite Word War I poem and sending it in to add to the archive (details on the website ). You can check out other people’s recordings and choices with the hashtag #WWIpoetry on Twitter. If you’re looking for inspiration, take a look at the war poetry on the shelves at Townhill.

Roses are red, violets are blue...

...Today is World Poetry Day, so why not borrow an anthology from SMU?

We’ve got poetry to suit all tastes, from Romantics such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge to the more recent musings of Roger McGough. Do you have a favourite poem or poet? Let us know! If you’re feeling creative, we’d love to read your poems on libraries, SMU, or poetry in general in our comments section.

For the record, I’m a fan of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven (though it does always remind me of The Simpsons episode that featured it!).