Random Acts of Poetry

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October 3rd - 9th: A celebration of poetry and literacy in cities across Canada, the UK, and Ireland.

The second annual Random Acts of Poetry week is a Canadian initiative that promotes poetry, poets and literacy in a fresh way to everyday people in their everyday lives. This year, 27 poets from across Canada will be joined by 10 poets from England, Scotland and Ireland, making the event truly international after only one year. Watch for local poets from your community reading poems to people on the street, at bus stops, schools, libraries, hair salons and in local schools.

Sponsored by Abebooks.com in association with Victoria READ Society.

"What do I like about the notion of random acts of poetry? Its playfulness, its populism, its commitment to the notion that poetry is everywhere, not just in textbooks and English classes."

-- Jannie Edwards

"Poetry is pretty well invisible in the mass media and most people's lives. Random Acts will put poems and poetry books into people's hands - people who would normally not read a poem. Why poetry? Because it's the song of our species and right now, many songbirds are threatened, if not endangered."

-- Elizabeth Zetlin

pecunia

oxide patina
blue green Roman coins
curses kissed into malleable metal
marked and tossed centuries ago
into Bath’s mineral pools

secret springs surrender those words
that wished the worst on
former friends feckless females current foes
hurt hate and revenge
rusted to epithet

downtown Edmonton
my son feels a penny’s raised numbers
the year of his birth embossed
he feels lucky and throws one cent
into the slate-lined fountain

says he wishes for nothing
just wants to throw the coin into water
and listen for its sound

-- Wendy McGrath

Jane Routh with Carole Nelson outside the tourist info centre in Sedbergh, Cumbria

Random Acts of Poetry

“I love to promote poetry anywhere, will stop strangers to read them poems and otherwise commit random acts of poetry. I thought it would be a good idea for poets across Canada to do the same thing.”

-- Wendy Morton, Founder