Eight other well known names took to the floral stage to recite their favourite American poetry. However, the gentle rule was sometimes ignored, especially by scientist Harold Varmus who chose a selection of British poetry by John Donne. Gyllenhaal selected a piece by the Russian Anna Akhmatova.

As well as poetry readings, the guests were encouraged to share their own personal stories relating to poetry. Composer Steve Reich recalled visiting a bookstore in central Manhattan and discovering the work of William Carlos Williams. The poet Mark Strand pointed to his favourite poem that he wished he himself had written, Archibald MacLeish’s “You, Andrew Marvell”.

Among the other guests to speak on stage were the poets Rose Styron and Jorie Graham, Author-humorist Roy Blount Jr, and the singer Joan Baez who admitted she knew nothing about reading poetry.

The American National Poetry Month runs until the end of April.

Originally, Placido Domingo and his son Placido Domingo Jr. had composed songs based on the Polish Pope’s religious poetry filled with the trappings of Catholicism. The opera singer then realised this might not spread the richness of the poetry as far as it could go and decided to make the songs more universal.

“I said, ‘This is fine, this is beautiful. … Maybe one day we should record this,’” he said in an interview. “But … this pope has been very much loved and admired by everybody, so there should exist other songs. So we found all this new material, so we found a lot of different themes.”

Karol Wojtyla, who became Pope John Paul II in 1978, went on to be celebrated as the second longest serving pontificate in the history of the Vatican. In 1981 he barely survived an assassination attempt when the Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Ağca opened fire on him during a parade in St. Peter’s Square.

Placido Domingo is a great admirer of the late Pope’s work which included a variety of published poems, plays and philosophical essays. Shortly before Wojtyla’s death in 2005, the tenor met with him and was thanked by the pontiff for previous operatic performances.

“When he was thanking me, I said, ‘Holiness, I know that you have wrote a lot more poems, so I would like it very much that we would put music to some of them, and record them,’” the Spanish great said. “He told me, ‘Oh, that would be wonderful,’ so in a way, he approve it.”

Domingo and his son believe the album Amore Infinite showcases the great humanity of Pope John Paul II during his long life time. Domingo Jr. worked on the CD which features well-known classical singing talents such as Andrea Bocelli, Josh Groban, Vanessa Williams and Katherine Jenkins.

The campaign was started by the Cervantes Institute and the Spanish Embassy.

‘How swift the street seen all at once, the car mirrors multiplied by the sun, how filthy the air: and this was the world?’ is a translated verse by the Chilean poet Gonzalo Rojas, one of many to be pasted on the side of the trains. The campaign covers the 17 kilometres and 13 stations between Pasay and Quezon.

‘If we can reach one percent of the half million commuters that ride this line every day, we’ll be happy,’ said Jose Rodriguez, director of the Cervantes in Manila. According to official date, the most popular books in the Philippines are the Bible and romance novels. Twenty-two percent of adults say they read at least once a week.

The metro has donated this space, for which it normally charges 300,000 pesos ($6155) a day, to display poems in English and Spanish written by 15 Spanish, Latin American and Filipino poets, from independence leader Jose Rizal to Jaime Gil de Biedma and Luis Garcia Montero.

‘Berso sa Metro’, the name of the campaign in the Tagalog language of the Philippines, has met with wild acclaim from the nation’s bloggers. ‘Tu Risa’ (Your Laughter) by Pablo Neruda and ‘Tu Justificas Mi Existencia’ (You Justify My Existence) by Luis Cernuda being the most popular.

‘I tried to reflect on what the poets inspired in me and at the same time create attractive designs to get the attention of passengers who are always in a hurry,’ said Filipino Nikkorlai Tapan, the campaign’s art director.

New York and Madrid were some of the first cities to experiment with the poetry trains and its expected more cities will follow suit.

“We asked ourselves what we could do for the environment in the toilet?” said Ryusuke Nagahara of the Japan Toilet Labo. “The answer is to save toilet paper and save water.”

Studies have shown that people use more toilet paper in public conveniences than they do in their own home. When a person doesn’t have to worry about the cost, they naturally use more. A Japanese industrial body has noted the rise in toilet paper sales over the last few years due to the increase in the number of toilets to be found in public.

Humour is often used to achieve the desired goals. “That paper will meet you only for a moment,” reads one poem. “Fold the paper over and over and over again,” says another. Or just: “Love the toilet.”

A similar concept has been started on the remote Scottish island of Shetland. There poets are being invited to submit their work to go on display in public toilets for the sake of poetry itself. The small island’s foremost poet and TS Eliot Prize winner Jen Hadfield said of the initiative:

“I’ve always loved the idea of sneaking poetry into unexpected places, proving that poetry’s place is in the real world, in real time.”

The competition which has been named the ‘Bards in the Bog’ will be open to people of all ages and can be about any subject matter they choose. However the poems have to be under twelve lines in length so as the words can be written in large letters for all to see. The closing date is Saturday 7th March.

Karen Fraser from Shetland Library said: “It should brighten up folk’s day, and maybe they’ll be inspired to pop into the library and borrow more poetry.”

Elizabeth Alexander

Barack Obama was elected today as the first African-American president of the United States of America. The natural born orator from Hawaii inspired the tens of thousands of people who thronged Washington DC to see history being made before their tear laden eyes. It was therefore natural, for only the fourth ever inauguration poet, to be somewhat of a shadow when following on from the president’s impressive first speech.

Elizabeth Alexander’s poem “Praise Song for the Day” was indeed a shadow and quite a forgettable shadow at that. The dull and somewhat monotonous reading style improved very little the bland and repetitious verses of a confusing poem. Whilst Obama’s speech will be remembered for decades to come, Alexander’s poem has most likely already been forgotten by most people.

The poem’s general message is one of hope, love and the memory of sacrifice which are naturally appropriate themes for a presidential inauguration, especially that of the first black commander-in-chief. However the structure, delivery and overly free-style soul lacked the conviction and greatness of the occasion. Perhaps if Obama had read the poem, or a famous Hollywood actor like Denzel Washington, then the oratory would have overcome the lacklustre words, that is possible, yet doubtful.

There is no doubting Elizabeth Alexander’s talent as a poet. She has published five books of poems including The Venus Hottentot (1990), Body of Life (1996), Antebellum Dream Book (2001), American Sublime (2005) and Miss Crandall’s School for Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color (2008). Alexander has also won numerous awards both for her poems and essays, amongst them the Connecticut Book Award, Alphonse Fletcher Sr. Fellowship, the 2007 Jackson Prize for Poetry, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the George Kent Award.

Unfortunately, her reputation, that led to Barack Obama inviting her to be his inauguration poet, did not mean a great poem to match that of Robert Frost’s ‘The Gift Outright‘ (admittedly not the poem he originally wrote for the inauguration of JFK) in 1961. Alexander’s poem ‘Praise Song for the Day‘ (see below) was the wrong poem for the right occasion.

Elizabeth Alexander currently teaches in the Department of African American Studies at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut.

‘Praise Song for the Day’ – The 2009 Presidential Inauguration Poem

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking forward in that light.

© Elizabeth Alexander – (source)

The BBC is seeking to help children engage in learning and reciting poetry. Every primary school in the UK is being encouraged to enter a child aged 7 – 11 to compete for the title of UK Poetry Recital Champion, and the chance to represent their school and region in an upcoming competition to be shown on BBC TV in spring 2009.

Pupils taking part will stand in front of their fellows and deliver poems ranging from The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear to Rudyard Kipling’s The Way Through the Woods. Winners will be chosen from each school that holds the competition. The group will then be narrowed down to 12 finalists chosen in regional competitions held at local libraries. The grand final will then take place next April in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford.

“Poetry is a bit of a dying art and the only way we will get it back to the front of the nation’s consciousness is to teach it to kids,” says author and television presenter Daisy Goodwin. “This will be great fun. It won’t be The X Factor. It will be a warm, friendly competition.”

As many people will concur with, last year’s Ofsted report branded the teaching of poetry in schools countrywide as “dull” and “lightweight”.

Daisy Goodwin believes that the answer lies in starting young. “A seven-year-old might miss every nuance of Kubla Khan or Ozymandias. But learnt young, the poems will stay in the head for life, adding to the lustre of good moments and illumination in the bad.”

The scheme has already been tried and tested in Ireland and the United States where one Kansas teacher has said, ““Success in reciting poetry gives even reluctant learners a feeling of success in an area in which they have had little interest.”

For more information visit the BBC website’s Off By Heart.