World Poetry Day 2010

World Poetry Day is on March 21, and was declared by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 1999. The purpose of the day is to promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry throughout the world and, as the UNESCO session declaring the day says, to "give fresh recognition and impetus to national, regional and international poetry movements." World Poetry Day has existed in some form since at least 1505, according to the National Poetry Day Committee, which was based in Florida, USA, in the early 1990s