National Poetry Day 2014

On the 2nd October 2014 New Directions Education helped celebrate all things poetry across the UK. The event – National Poetry Day had the theme ‘remember’. We invited our teams across England and Wales to remember their own favourite poems and submit them for promotion via our social media accounts.

The offerings were eclectic, diverse and above all very inspiring. From Philip Larkin, the English poet to Seamus Heaney, the recently deceased Irish poet and playwright, our staff demonstrated how poetry impacts and influences everyone in some way, shape or form.

Speaking about her nomination – WH Auden, Funeral Blues, Anna Powell, Account Manager for our Cardiff Primary Team said ‘this poem should be sad, it should perhaps make us reflect on our own mortality. Instead, for me, it evokes happy memories that remind me to celebrate all that is wonderful in life’.

The diversity of the poems submitted was echoed further with submissions from popular culture including ‘The Last Barman Poet: Cocktail Recipes’ and those that exposed our inner child with Roald Dahl’s ‘Cinderella’. One thing is consistent in all of the discussion – poetry has had, and continues to have an impact on our lives long after our experiences in the classroom.

From our teams in the Wirral and Wrexham, down to Birmingham and Bristol – everyone had something to say about poems they liked. Ruth Dalton, Group Communications Manager for New Directions said ‘I left formal education in 1999, and I graduated with a degree in English, so I have no excuse not to contribute or comment on National Poetry Day. However, I was delighted to hear from colleagues around the UK about what impacted and influenced them. Poetry touches lives whether we like it or not – for good and bad. It transcends all sorts of boundaries and makes us smile, cry and sometimes shout’.

New Directions Education is always delighted to get involved with initiatives that impact schools and colleges across the UK. Every now and again, we like to take a step back and lament on our own academic journeys too.

Check out the full list of nominations from our teams on our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/ndteach