Poet Yu Xiaozhong reads his poem for passengers at the Hongshan Subway Subway Station in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, Dec. 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Yu Pei)
BEIJING, March 21 (Xinhua) -- March 21 marks World Poetry Day. Declared by UNESCO in 1999, World Poetry Day celebrates one of humanity's most treasured forms of cultural and linguistic expression and identity.
According to UNESCO, the aim of World Poetry Day is "supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression and increasing the opportunity for endangered languages to be heard."
Poems can bring people together across continents, and provide comfort and inspiration in times of crisis and difficulty. This year, as we live under the shadow of COVID-19, let's seize the occasion to celebrate the power of poetry and share a poem that has brightened up your day!
A girl writes a poem at a cafe in Zagreb, capital of Croatia, during International Poetry Day, March 21, 2017. (Xinhua/Marko Lukunic)
Dancers of China Oriental Song and Dance Troupe perform the dance poem "National Beauty" in Santiago, Chile on Dec. 4, 2018. (Xinhua/Jorge Villegas)
Actors of Sichuan Song and Dance Theatre Co., Ltd. perform in the poem-dance drama in Chicago, the United States, on Sept. 25, 2016. (Xinhua/Wang Ping)
Readers select collections of poems in a poetry themed bookstore in Shanghai, east China, on Dec. 28, 2019. (Xinhua/Liu Ying)
Tamdrin reads poems written on valances at a museum which will be one of his workplaces in Letong Town of Litang County, the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Garze, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Dec. 3, 2020. (Xinhua/Shen Bohan)
Children recite poems at Yulan Road Primary School in Nanning City, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, April 2, 2018, on the occasion of the International Children's Book Day. (Xinhua/Zhou Hua)
A poet (L) reads his poem with a Chinese professional reader during the 5th Cambridge Xu Zhimo Poetry and Art Festival 2019 at King's College, University of Cambridge, in Cambridge, Britain on Aug. 9, 2019. (Xinhua/Han Yan)
Students chant Chinese poems at Niles North High School in Illinois state, the United States, April 3, 2019. (Xinhua/Wang Ping)
Students from Houston Independent School District read a poem of Tang Dynasty during the opening ceremony of the 10th National Chinese Language Conference of the United States in Houston, Texas, the United States, on April 6, 2017. (Xinhua/Zhong Jia)
Artists Yu Fang (2nd R), Chen Duo (2nd L), Li Yemo (1st R) and Sun Xiaomei (1st L) recite a poem during poetry reciting activity to greet the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival in Beijing, capital of China, Sept. 17, 2018. (Xinhua/Luo Xiaoguang)
Photo taken on Aug. 10, 2018 shows the marble memorial stone engraved with verses of Xu Zhimo's famous poem A Second Farewell to Cambridge placed at the entrance of the Xu Zhimo memorial garden at King's College Cambridge, Britain. (Xinhua/Stephen Chung)
A train stewardess in traditional Chinese costume recites a poem to greet the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival aboard a bullet train from Shanghai to Nanjing of east China's Jiangsu Province, Sept. 12, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Bo)
An Indian man and his children pose beside the statue of Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore during the celebration on the 156th birth anniversary of Tagore in Kolkata, capital of eastern Indian state West Bengal on May 9, 2017. (Xinhua/Tumpa Mondal)
The poem of "Second Farewell to Cambridge" by Chinese poet Xu Zhimo engraved on the path in both Chinese and English is seen at the Xu Zhimo Garden in King's College during the 5th Cambridge Xu Zhimo Poetry and Art Festival 2019 in Cambridge, Britain on Aug. 9, 2019. (Xinhua/Han Yan)
Patient Jiang Kaisheng (3rd L) shares a poem created by patients and wishes female workers happiness at a makeshift hospital in Wuchang District of Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, March 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Wang Yuguo)■
