On March 21, the UN agency commemorated the World Poetry Day.
In her message, UNESCO Director-General, Audrey Azoulay, noted: “Poetry opens doors for others, enriches dialogue, promotes progress and is needed more than ever in these challenging times.”
To her, love, death and nature have probably always been the most common themes in poetry, especially in the deep connection between emotions and the richness that nature offers, while contemporary authors also touch on ecology and climate change in their poetry.
Noting every poetic form as unique, she said each reflects the universal nature of the human experience.
“Our quest for creativity that transcends all limitations and boundaries is the power of poetry.
“In a world marked by words, colours and images born for the real thing, poetry has unprecedented power.”
It is a power that takes us out of the everyday and a power that reminds us of the beauty that surrounds us, of the resilience of the human spirit.”
On the importance of poetry for present times, Slovanian poet, Muanis Sinanovic, believes that only poetry maintains a real awareness of the wonder of existence.
“Most people ignore it, but it has a very loyal small audience that cannot do without poetry and knows it. Even civilisation, as such, cannot endure without poetry, but the majority culture is not aware of this – yet the institutional preservation of poetry is a testimony to its importance,” stresses the poet, who believes that only poetry can communicate to man a fundamental truth about language – its miraculousness and its insufficiency at the same time.
“At the same time, only poetry maintains a real awareness of the wonder of existence and consciousness that the existence of everything glows in mystery.”
