The Second World Poetry Day, organized by the Center for Turkish Literature with the support of the Turkish National Commission for UNESCO, will be celebrated at Bilkent on Wednesday, March 21. Prof. Talat Halman, Chair of the Department of Turkish Literature, said that the aim of this day is to strengthen relations between poets all over the world using messages of peace in their poems. He also adds that World Poetry Day aims to attract people’s interests to poetry and literature in general.
Prof. Halman explained that the idea of celebrating a special day for poetry worldwide originated in Turkey. Tarık Günersel, a member of Türkiye PEN* Yazarlar Derneği proposed a project for an annual celebration of World Poetry Day to the UNESCO Central Committee which unanimously accepted the project. The first World Poetry Day was celebrated on March 21, 2000.
This year, the Center for Turkish Literature has prepared a full program to celebrate the day. Prof. Bülent Bozkurt, Dean of the Faculty of Humanity and Letters, and Refik Erduran, a member of the Turkish National Commission for UNESCO, will make opening speeches. Following their speeches, foreign students and visitors will read poems in Albanian, Arabic, Bosnian, English, French, Indian, Italian, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, and the Xhosa language. After each poem is read in its native language, a Turkish or English translation of the poem will be read. İlhan Berk, a well-known Turkish poet will also read his poems on Bilkent’s World Poetry Day.
Don’t miss this opportunity to hear poetry from around the world on Wednesday, March 21 at 6 p.m. at the C-Block Auditorium.
*PEN stands for (P): Poets, Playwrights, Publishers, (E): Essayists, Editors, and (N): Novelists.
İhsan Sönmez (IR/III)
