This year's theme of National Poetry Day on Thursday 5 October - the annual mass celebration on the first Thursday of October that encourages everyone to make, experience and share poetry with family and friends - is ‘Refuge’. We at Write Out Loud will freely admit that this national event has rather crept up on us this year. (After all, every day is kind of National Poetry Day on Write Out Loud. And World Poetry Day too, if it comes to that!)  Nevertheless, one look at our Gig Guide for Thursday will confirm that there are plenty of poetry events taking place around the country, whether themed with National Poetry Day or not. The National Poetry Day website lists a host of events. 

National Poetry Day is organised by the Forward Arts Foundation, which this year is appealing for donations on its website. It has also named Lemn Sissay as an Ambassador for National Poetry Day. He said: "Poetry is not a minority sport. It is in the lyrics of Amy Winehouse, in adverts on television, it is read at weddings and funerals, It is in the West End and theatres around the UK. Poetry is in every musical form from grime to opera.”

Organisers are urging people to share their versions of Refuge, through writing and sharing of poems on social media using the hashtag #NationalPoetryDay. Lemn Sissay’s poem, ‘I will build an Embassy’, is one of a range of commissioned poems on the National Poetry Day website that can be shared with friends, classes and communities to help consider what refuge means.