National Poetry Month
Posted by October is National Poetry Month in the United Kingdom, and it’s a great opportunity to celebrate the beauty that language can create, whether it be in your native tongue or a foreign language.
This month is the perfect time to discover something new in poetry, whether you are an existing enthusiast or not. These days poetry doesn’t have to be classical, or in rhyming couplets. It can take the form of non-rhyming prose, haiku, performance art, or poetry jam. It can be dramatic or serene.
For language learners, poetry can be a great inspiration, and it’s very fulfilling to be able to understand a poet’s original intention. Try a couple of poems in your target language, and compare them to their translations. Can you see any difference? It’s always useful to bear in mind that translations of art need to be somewhat artistic themselves, and fail as poetic translations if they are word-for-word.
What are your favourite foreign language poems?