Random Acts of Poetry Day

Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.

Audre Lorde

As long as there has been language, there has been poetry, taking the shadowed hearts of men and women and finding ways to twist the abstract feelings and experiences of perception into the rising and falling rhythms of the spoken or written word.

The spiritual and emotional experiences of mankind cannot be written in simple phrases or plain sentences bound by the rules of grammar and sense, sometimes our inner madness must be expressed through chaos. Such is the purpose of Random Acts of Poetry Day, to unleash the human voice within us and share it with the world.

History of Random Acts Of Poetry Day

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

John F. Kennedy

Every year on the first Wednesday of October, a type and class of people emerge from their shuttered libraries and steam-filled coffee shops. In hand, they carry chalk and pen, page and dream, and head out into the wild lands of the mundane and banal to spread their hearts blood on the blank page that is the modern world. Who are these intrepid souls? Poets of every stripe, every background, every heritage heading out into the world to ensure that we all have, for just a moment, a poetic and spiritual day.

How to celebrate Random Acts Of Poetry Day

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.

Percy Byshhe Shelley

Celebrating Random Acts of Poetry is best done in moments of guerilla poetry. Take your chalk in hand and scrawl the words of your heart across sidewalks and alley walls, ramble madly, like a sweaty toothed madman, or wax lyrical about the most important love of your heart.

Better with the word than the pen? Then stand on a street corner shouting poetry to the wind, imparting onto all the joy and pain, sorrow and exultation of your soul, heart, and mind.

To be a poet is to walk the wild lands of impossibility and imagination, and Random Acts of Poetry Day is your opportunity to, for just a moment, bring others into the world in which you live.