National Poetry Day

National Poetry Day

Andrew McDonnell

Today is National Poetry Day and so the LRC marked the occasion with a poetry reading from one of the University Centre Peterborough lecturers - Andrew McDonnell. Andrew is an English lecturer at UCP and has a book of poetry coming out next year.

Andrew McDonnell reads his poetry
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

National Poetry Day display

We also asked staff and students to send us some poetic song lyrics which we added to our National Poetry Day display (on the butterfly).

National Poetry Day display
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

A common poetic device used in songs is personification. This is where a writer describes something which isn't alive with human characteristics. In Sting's Fields of Gold, "the sun in his jealous sky" describes the sun as if it has a male gender and ascribes the emotion of jealousy to the sky. Of course the sky isn't jealous of the sun (as far as we know!), but describing it this way creates more of an atmosphere and sounds more interesting. This idea can be used in descriptive written work as well as poetry. Can you think of other music lyrics which use personification?