Poetry will take the centrestage on Friday, March 21, as the world celebrates World Poetry Day (WPD). Declared by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the day is dedicated to celebrating humanities through poetry; and especially to “give fresh recognition and impetus to national, regional, and international poetry movements.”

The theme for this year’s World Poetry Day 2025 is ‘Poetry as a Bridge for Peace and Inclusion’. The theme highlights poetry’s role in fostering harmony, bridging cultures, and expressing deep human emotions.

It also looks at poetry’s ability to promote harmony, bridge cultural divides, and express human emotions. It equally looks at poetry’s transformative role in promoting peace, creativity, and inclusion.

Poetry connects people across borders, fostering mutual understanding and respect. By amplifying diverse voices, including those from marginalised communities, poetry serves as a catalyst for cultural exchange and social unity.

The day aligns with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly: SDG 4, which speaks on Quality Education – Promoting literacy and creativity through poetry education; SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities – Amplifying voices from underrepresented communities and preserving endangered languages and SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions – Using poetry to foster peace, dialogue, and mutual understanding.

It is an opportunity to sample every kind of verse: free, rhyming, lyrical, haiku, ballads, sonnets, elegies, odes, limericks, couplets and more. It is going to be an evening of uniquely curated and relentlessly sourced poetry at the Terra Kulture Arena, on Tiamiyu Savage Street, Victoria Island Lagos.

Starting at 4:00pm, the event to be graced by diverse guests including eminent members of the literary community, patrons of the arts, captains of industries, as well as invited members of the public, will feature among other items, poetry reading, performances, workshops, and reception for guests. The event offers a rich palette of words deployed throughout history – in every culture and on every continent.

“Arranged in words, coloured with images, struck with the right meter, the power of poetry has no match. As an intimate form of expression that opens doors to others, poetry enriches the dialogue that catalyses all human progress, and is more necessary than ever in turbulent times,” poetry speaks to common humanity and shared values, transforming the simplest of poems into a powerful catalyst for dialogue and peace.

From The “Epic of Gilgamesh”, which is among the earliest works of documented poetry, to the 14th Century when Sonnets were created, poetry has become a unique medium open to interpretation that allows people to bring their own insights and experiences to bear on the poem.

The best poets take advantage of this by creating work that will resonate with different people for different reasons. They tackle issues of life, death, love, grief and more to connect personally with the reader.

Famous poets earn acclaim because their work is universal — they combine beautiful writing with deep thoughts, often incorporating imagery, symbolism, metaphor and, of course, creative use of meter to create singular works.

The celebration highlights “reading, performing, writing, publishing, and teaching of poetry throughout the world.” Since 2020, the Providus Bank, under its CSR Initiative, has hosted the celebration of the Day.

Curated by Jahman Anikulapo for the Culture Advocates Caucus, CAC, it is under the encouragement of the Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, former UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.

Officially titled, ProvidusBank World Poetry Day Café: An Evening with Wole Soyinka, the past editions have explored themes relating to humanity’s existential concerns, among them preservation of the environment, education, youth and female empowerment, migration and socio-cultural pluralism.

The 2025 edition, which is the sixth in the series, is dedicated to commemorating the beginning of the United Nations Second Decade of African Descendants (2025 – 2034), hence the theme: Sand Dune and Ocean Bed: The Template of Dispersal. The theme is also in the context of the ongoing UN Anniversary for Enslaved Peoples and Reparatory Justice.

According to Anikulapo, five Nigerian poets have been selected to headline the edition, to be joined by four poets from Cuba. The selected poets are: Yusuf Àlàbí Balógun (Àrẹ̀mọ Gemini), Evelyn Osagie, Tijani Usman (Tijaywebster), Kafayat Quadri, (Kaffe Of Life) and Chinelo Nwora.

“Since the Cuban guests are mainly presenting contents rooted in their performance culture and heritage, the choice of the local poets has been carefully made such that the guests would have variety of Nigerian cultural contents, even as they stay faithful to the theme of the festival,“ stated the curator, Anikulapo.

He added: “The five recommended Nigerian poets have thus been chosen based on their varied styles of presentation that would expose the visitors and the guests to a rich taste of poetry delivery/performance techniques in Nigeria.”

The Cuban delegation comes with Camerata Cortes, a musical project created by the legendary Cuban flutist, José Luis Cortés ‘El Tosco’, on October 5, 2003 to coincide with his birth date, Camerata Cortes, since its creation, has been characterised by a very high level of professionalism and has defended the best of Cuban, Latin American and international music, venturing into a great diversity of genres and innovating with many proposals that break barriers and without creative limits. They use many different types of flutes such as the piccolo, the flute in C, the alto flute, the bass flute and sometimes with guests playing traditional or ethnic flutes made of wood or bamboo.

The members are all graduates of the National School of Music, the University of the Arts of Cuba, and work as teachers at various levels of education. They have performed at various venues of national importance, such as: the Basilica of “San Francisco de Asis”, the Gran Teatro de la Habana “Alicia Alonso”, the National Theatre, and other venues in provinces such as Santiago de Cuba, Villa Clara, Mayabeque and Cienfuegos.

The invited poets are Alex Pausides, who served as a literary advisor in Manzanillo from 1972 to 1986. He became Vice President of the Hermanos Saíz Association of Young Writers and Artists in 1986, and in 1988, he was appointed director of the cultural monthly El Caimán Barbudo. He also served as Vice President of the Cuban Writers Association from 1998 to 2014. A founding member of the World Poetry Movement in 2011, he has since been part of its coordinating committee. Others are Edelmis Anoceto Vega, Israel Domínguez And Sinecio Verdecia Díaz.

Also billed to perform in the Evening of Poetry is multi-instrumentalist, composer, jazz music arranger and performer, Wole Alade. Alade is a world-acclaimed music maestro who has produced seasoned pieces of music in the genre of African, African American and contemporary music. He has written music scores for six motion pictures.