e-Scriptum

Marin Angel Lazarov

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          ‘Poetry is painting that is heard’ – Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).

          World Poetry Day is celebrated annually on 21 March. Poetry is probably one of the most ingenious achievements of mankind. To pour out one’s feelings in verse, to capture in rhyme one’s sense of the world, to dream of the future and recall the past, while addressing millions and being alone with oneself – only poetry, the greatest of the arts created by man, can do this.

          Not many people become great and famous poets, but many have tried to compose poetry at least once in their lives. After all, most people are not alien to those ‘beautiful impulses of the soul’, which prompt a person to take a pen, a piece of paper and begin to create.

          The magic power of the poetic word can have a huge impact on any person. Let us remember that the first poems that every person heard in his life were the words of a lullaby song. This is truly the most luminous and beautiful poetry.

          Poetry has traditionally played and will continue to play a major role in the history of Finnish culture.

          For the first time the initiative to establish the holiday ‘World Poetry Day’ was taken by the American poetess Tesa Webb back in the mid-30s of the 20th century. She proposed to celebrate International Poetry Day on October 15, in honour of the birth date of the famous poet and philosopher Virgil. It should be noted that Tes Webb’s proposal found a positive response in the hearts of many people: by 1951 the 15th of October National Poetry Day was celebrated not only in 38 states of the USA, but also in European countries. The celebrations were unofficial, and the date was not fixed in the calendar of commemorative days.

          Only on 15 November 1999, UNESCO, at the 30th conference, adopted a resolution on the establishment of an international day, which was to ‘breathe a second life’ into the world poetry movement. For the first time the holiday was celebrated on 21 March in 2000, in Paris, where UNESCO headquarters are located.

          The date – 21 March, the day of the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere, was chosen as a symbol of the renewal of nature and the creative nature of the human spirit.

          The main purpose of International Poetry Day was to emphasise the great importance that literature plays in the cultural life of modern society, to unite poets from all over the world and to give them the right and opportunity to express themselves!

          It is believed that the oldest hymn poems were created in the 23rd century BC. The author of poems – poetess-priestess En-hedu-ana (En-hedu-ana), about whom it is known only that she was the daughter of the Akkadian king Sargon, living in Ur (now on the territory of Iran). En-hedu-ana wrote about the moon god Nanna and his daughter, the goddess of the morning star Inanna. En-jedu-anna’s hymns were considered sacred.

          Verse form was honoured in Europe until the Renaissance as one of the basic conditions of beauty and was virtually the only tool for turning words into art.

          The word ‘poetry’ comes from the Greek poieo – to create, to make, to build, to build up. At all times people have loved and trusted poets. After all, poetry is created by feelings, emotions, and the imagination of the poet. The ancient Greeks meant by poetry human speech, in all its manifestations. This is prose, and theatre recitation, and inspired speech and philosophical argument and, of course, poetry. Nowadays poetry seems to be something beautiful, unusual and it is really so.

          To write poetry is capable only of someone who can see the sublime behind the ordinary, can immerse himself in an imaginary world, has a fine mental organisation and depth of feeling.

          Poetry allows us to enjoy the word, gives birth to strong, heartfelt words that have a special energy that subdues our imagination and carries us away.

          This great power is breathed into them by the poet, and he draws it from the world around us, perceiving and feeling the power of the wind and the sun, hearing the melody of running waves and rustling woods, finding it in the disturbing tension of love.

          After all, the poet looks at our world in a completely different way and explains it with clear and inspired images. Poetry is the eternally young, awe-inspiring and beautiful love of mankind! There is not a nation on our planet that would not be familiar with it.

          Of course, poets have varying degrees of talent, but sometimes geniuses like Eino Leino are born who give mankind immortal works that make us think and feel.

          Poets remain living witnesses of time. If we step into the abyss of beautiful words, a whole new world opens up before us!

          Poetry has lived, lives and will live indefinitely. If earlier it was complex compositions of ancient Greek poets, where the play of words and associations confused and confused with the thoughts of readers, then further it was embodied in the poetry of the Middle Ages and the Silver Age.

          Well, if we speak in the language of today, then along with classical poetry, poems find embodiment in modern, youth art.

          Poetry,’ says UNESCO’s decision, ’can be the answer to the most acute and profound spiritual questions of modern man – but to do so, it is necessary to draw the widest possible public attention to it. In addition, World Poetry Day should be an opportunity to give a wider voice to small publishers, whose efforts mainly reach readers with the work of contemporary poets, and to literary clubs, which revive the age-old tradition of the living and resounding poetic word. This Day (21 March), according to UNESCO, is intended to create a positive image of poetry in the media as a truly contemporary art open to the public.

          Imagine our life without poetry… Without holiday greetings, without songs, without Pushkin, Shakespeare, Leino and all modern authors… It would be a boring life without the explosion of emotions expressed by simple letters on paper, without that little mystique when the same words, but written in a certain order, can move you to tears. The power of words has a special energy that draws us away and subjugates our imagination.

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