Celebrate World Poetry Day

World Poetry Day is celebrated on 21 March, and was declared by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 1999. Its purpose is to promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry throughout the world.

Poem is probably one of the earliest literature forms and is regarded highly in both Western and Eastern literature. There are a lot well-known classic poems such as the Greek epics of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, English poet Milton’s Paradise lost, Shakespeare’s Sonnet, Italian poet Dante’s Divine comedy and many more. If the collection of Shijing was the earliest collection of poems in Chinese then Arabic and Hindi all had their share of poetry in early civilisation.

Modern English poets, such as W H Auden, along with W B Yeats, T S Eliot, influenced 20th century poetry writing. Auden is highly regarded for his poetry of ‘stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content’.  Continue reading

Librarians’ Choice – March 2018

The top 10 March 2018 release books as voted for by library staff around Australia is here. There are some by some well known favourites such as Tim Winton, Nicola Moriarty and Fiona McCallum as well as some lesser known talents. Click on the title to reserve a copy now.

The lost flowers of Alice HartHolly Ringland (Librarians’ Choice Favourite)
Alice survives a devastating family tragedy when she is just 9 years old, then goes to live on a flower farm where she learns the language of Australian native flowers – a way to say the things that are too hard to speak. The story celebrates Australia’s beautiful landscape, moving between the lush sugar cane fields by the sea, a native Australian flower farm, and a celestial crater in the central desert.  Continue reading