Poetry is for everyone
Why is poetry important?
Poetry doesn’t have to be perfect. It can provide new freedom to begin writing for pleasure and creating without rules - there's no “doing it wrong”.
Poetry gives children and young people space to find and express their voice, identity and emotions. To articulate all manner of thoughts percolating in their mind which might be ready to share as fully-crafted, written verse or partially-formed rifts that establish themselves once uttered.
In fact, our research shows that poetry supports children and young people’s wellbeing, confidence, empathy, creativity, and self-expression making it an empowering and accessible way into writing for anyone, whatever age, whatever their experience or story so far.
Poetry can also be a more accessible route into reading for reluctant readers who feel over-faced by a novel or chapter book, as well as a mechanism for children and young people to share their voice by creating their own poetry when they might otherwise feel silenced.
New Chapters poetry anthology is a megaphone for the voiceless
Discover how our Criminal Justice programme uses poetry and creative writing to give a voice to the voiceless.
A quiet resurgence of poetry
Our 2025 research, which explores how young people engage with poetry, revealed that more children and young people who wrote poetry also said that they enjoyed writing more generally compared with their peers who didn’t write poetry.
The research also showed that a quarter of children and young people read poetry in their free time – a statistic which remains stable a year on.
1 in 4 children and young people still enjoy reading poetry, despite competing interests from digital media and other activities. If anything, there has been a resurgence of engagement with poetry in the last decade – a quiet resurgence of poetry as an outlet of self-expression.
We go beyond National Poetry Day
We love to mark National Poetry Day on the first Thursday of October every year when we provide teachers and pupils with tailored classroom resources, inspiring workshops and online events to shine a spotlight on the joy of reading, writing and sharing poetry.
However, we also recognise the importance poetry plays in many of the settings we find ourselves throughout the year. From early years environments dripping in repeated rhymes and catchy, lyrical verse which are used to familiarise the very youngest participants in our programmes with the literacy skill they need to grow - to schools across the country who benefit from our classroom resources, events and programme activity, to workshops tailored to empower young people who are in the prisons we come alongside through our Criminal Justice programmes.
Young Poet Laureate Programme 2025
Be part of the first ever Young Poet Laureate programme and inspire the next generation to express themselves creatively through poetry in all its exciting forms – from rhyming couplets to rap, sonnets to spoken word!
Poetry creates connection
Discover the impact our poetry programmes are having to help children and young people shake off their inhibitions, draw out their own words, in their own style to create lasting poetry to move, inspire, challenge and uplift.
A Poem for your club
Sometimes described as poetry in motion, football has a unique ability to connect people through a shared language and experience. The relationship between football and poetry is more obvious than it may seem. Our recent nationwide project with Arts Council England - A Poem for your Club - has given young football fans and other groups in the community an opportunity to explore their creativity as well as their love for their team. We know that sport can be a great motivator for inspiring reluctant or disengaged children and young people to get involved with writing and the resulting poems are testament to how we can connect sport and literacy in a way which inspires and sparks creativity.
Here is just one of the brilliant poems to come out of the project:
Programmes, events and classroom resources
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Explore practical tips for how to challenge preconceptions around poetry and create a vibrant experience in every classroom.Learn more about Five ways to bust myths and preconceptions about poetry in the classroom.
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National Poetry Day falls on the first Thursday of October each year, and we produce new resources to help you celebrate and explore the focus theme.Learn more about National Poetry Day 2025.
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Giving students the opportunity to visit iconic London venues and work with a professional poet as inspiration for writing their own poems.Learn more about Young City Poets.
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Developed in partnership with the Royal British Legion, we provide a national online assembly and poetry teaching resources and workshops to explore the importance of commemorating...Learn more about Remembrance 2025: National Assembly and teaching resources.
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Encourage and diversify reading for pleasure in your school with The Verse Novel ChallengeLearn more about The Verse Novel Challenge.
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A vibrant resource for primary schools, designed to ignite whole-staff enthusiasm and embed the transformative joy of poetry across the curriculum.Learn more about Unlocking poetry: a poetry lover's classroom.
