Today is National Poetry Day, a nationwide celebration of poetry for everyone, everywhere, which falls every year on the first Thursday of October. Since it was first launched in 1994, the day has been marked by a nationwide celebration of all things poetic.

From 1999 onwards, National Poetry Day has been loosely “themed” – the theme is not prescriptive but it serves to kick start inspiration. This year’s theme is ‘Messages’, with the aim of encouraging people to literally “say it with a poem”!

Thanks to our own English & Drama School, we’ve built up quite an extensive range of poetry, ancient and modern, ranging from the Greek epic poetry of Homer to Shakespeare’s Sonnets, to the 19th century classics of Coleridge and William Wordsworth, to the contemporary poetry of Philip Larkin and Andrew Motion. Not forgetting our comprehensive range of literature databases available on Library Catalogue Plus, most notably Literature Online (LION), from which you can glean everything you ever wanted to know about your favourite poem or poem. Why not have a browse?