21st March History – World Poetry Day
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Know the history of the 21st March. We bring to our readers the most significant events which changed history. In this story, we celebrate World Poetry Day.
Hello, I am time. I have witnessed it all. Be the creation or be the distraction. So today I bring to you the history of 21st March. Firstly join me in wishing a very happy birthday to glamourous actress Rani Mukherjee, the brilliant chess player Soumya Swaminathan, and the athletic football player Irungbam Surkumar Singh. Also, let us pay our respect to legendary Shanai player Bismillah Khan on his birth anniversary.
Well, this is the day we celebrate World Poetry Day and it is also the day we celebrate International Day of Forest. The other significant event is it is the foundation day of Twitter.
Say it in Verses
In the history of 21st March, the most prominent event is the celebration of World Poetry Day. The day was declared by UNESCO in 1999 to celebrate the art of poetry and its contribution to cultural and linguistic diversity. The aim was to promote the reading, writing, and teaching of poetry around the world.
So to celebrate this day let me first share the rich Indian tradition of poetry. Indian poetry is a reflection of the diverse spiritual traditions within India. This form of art is expressed through various Indian languages such as Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit, Hindi, Oriya, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Assamese, and Urdu. Persian and English languages have also had a strong influence on Indian poetry. Poetry is the oldest form of literature in India and has a rich written and oral tradition.
India has a long history of arts and poetry, with significant periods of maturation in verse, including the Indian Epic Poetry and Indian Medieval Poetry ages. The Sanskrit language dominated the Epic Age, while the Medieval Period saw the overwhelming influence of Urdu and poets penning for that language.
Indian poetry has explored the diverse religious and spiritual traditions that have thrived in India. The devotional Bhakti Movement, with luminaries like Mirabai, Ramprasad Sen, and Kamalakanta, Srimanta Sankardev are some of the most prominent Indian poetical genres that contemplate the various strands and astonishing varieties of Hinduism. The poetry of the Upanishads and Vedas is steeped in the tremendous confidence of the Vedic seers. Such poetic traditions in India convey an elevated and complex message of spiritual transformation. Besides a strong influence of the Sufi movement can be seen in Indian poetry. The poems and songs of Lalon Fakir, Kabir, Hason Raja show us great depth in spiritual consciousness.
Numerous Indian poets have been inspired to write poetry to express their almost transcendental mystical experiences. Adi Shankaracharya was India’s leading exponent of Non-Dualism (Advaita).
From 1850 to 1900, Indian poets were passionate poets in an imitative period, while from 1900 to 1947, they tried to incorporate the romanticism of early 19th-century British poets in an assimilative period. The romantic output of poets like Toru Dutt, Sarojini Naidu, Rabindranath Tagore, Shukanto Bhattacharya, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Aurobindo Ghose, and Harindranth Chattopadhyaya was fraught with nationalism, spirituality, and mysticism.
After Independence, Indian poetry embraced the emergence of Subaltern Poetry with a group of poets from the marginal section of society. Female poets have been an integral part of Indian poetic history. Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Kamala Das, Sujata Bhatt, and others carry on the illustrious lineage of poetesses like Gargi Vachaknavi and Lopamudra, who were also philosophers.
Even in the contemporary era, India has produced poets who stood up for their beliefs and wrote for harmony, change, rights, and rebellion. Some of these poets have become legends, and Indian poetry of the modern era has seen striking experimentation in forms, devices, voices, and motifs, as poets try to pursue perfection. Chandra Raut’s ‘Snake’ (Oriya) explores Christian myth and Biblical imagery, while Keki Daruwalla’s ‘A Parsi Lament’ (English) laments the decline of the Parsi community in India.
So on the occasion of World Poetry Day, let us encourage each other to read, write, and share poetry in all its forms and languages. It is a day to celebrate the richness and diversity of human expression and to promote the role of poetry in fostering creativity, imagination, and understanding among people of different cultures and backgrounds. On this special day let me share a poem.
An Ode to Verses
On this day, we celebrate
The power of words to elevate
In verse and rhyme
Enchanting every time
Through poetry, we explore
The unknown and much more
In the depths of our hearts
We find the courage to embark
The cadence and rhythm
And the essence of life
Poetry can capture
All the beauty of nature
So on this special day
Let us read, write and say
The words that connect us,
Let us celebrate the power of verse
Let us raise our pens and voices high
And sing the praises of poetry, nigh
For it has the power to heal and unite
And fill our lives with meaning and light.
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A devoted foodie with keen interest in wild life, music, cinema and travel Somashis has evolved over time . Being an enthusiastic reader he has recently started making occasional contribution to write-ups.