Skopje, 21 March 2024 (MIA) — Skopje, Struga and Strumica will host numerous events celebrating World Poetry Day. In addition to the Struga Poetry Evenings announcing its 2024 award winners, other events will mark the 85th anniversary of Kocho Racin's seminal poetry collection "White Dawns" and the 80th anniversary of Aco Shopov's "Poems" and many local poets will read their poems at various venues.

Skopje's City Mall will host several poetry readings through March 24 as part of its "Poetry Days." Participants include Nikola Ristanovski, Vesna Mojsova-Chepishevska, Vladimir Martinovski, who will speak about Shopov's poetry on Thursday.

Other events at the mall include readings at the Literatura bookstore, a screening of animated films inspired by poetry at the Cineplexx movie theater, and conversations with Macedonian poets as well as a contest in reciting poems for elementary and high school students.

As is tradition on World Poetry Day, Struga Poetry Evenings festival organizers will announce the year's winners of the Golden Wreath and Bridges of Struga awards.

The announcement will be followed by a poetry reading by Macedonian PEN Center members.

In Struga, the Miladinov Brothers Memorial House has organized a reading by local poets from Struga, Vevchani, Ohrid, Kichevo, Prilep and Skopje; and the local Europe House will host "The Pulse of Poetry" reading by young poets from Struga, Ohrid, Vevchani, Skopje and Kumanovo, followed by a performance by Pijan slavej.

Also, all elementary and high schools will dedicate a special class to World Poetry Day, for the first time in the country. The lesson will present well-known poems by international and domestic authors.

In Strumica, the cultural association Context and Europe House Strumica will host a informal poetry reading featuring local poets. 

Held every year on March 21, World Poetry Day celebrates one of humanity’s most treasured forms of cultural and linguistic expression and identity, according to UNESCO.

UNESCO first adopted March 21 as World Poetry Day during its 30th General Conference in Paris in 1999, with the aim of supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression and increasing the opportunity for endangered languages to be heard. 

World Poetry Day is the occasion to honor poets, revive oral traditions of poetry recitals, promote the reading, writing and teaching of poetry, foster the convergence between poetry and other arts such as theater, dance, music and painting, and raise the visibility of poetry in the media. mr/