It’s National Poetry Day today, Thursday 2 October, with poetic events planned all round the country. This year the theme is ‘Remember’, with a special research project launched by Cambridge University on the day – ‘Think of a Poem’. Over the next year year academics will be trying to find out what poems are stored in the nation’s memory. Here’s just a flavour of events that will be taking place on National Poetry Day:

A day’s festival  of poetry at Blackpool central library, with workshops, readings and a competition. Poets will be taking over Bedford central library from 10am-1pm, with readings, workshops and talks. In Colchester, the Mosaic poetry group will be reading at the library between 6.30-8pm, while in Wokingham there is an hour of poetry from 7-8pm. Poetry by Heart will be at College Green, Bristol from 12pm-2pm, and staging recitations, readings and poetic performances. Whether you have a favourite poem memorised or you'd like to choose one on the day, come along to read, listen and celebrate poetry in the centre of the city. Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre has organised a series of pop-up poetry events at the university’s campuses, and at locations in Oxford city centre. Also in Oxford, four poets featured in the new Emma Press anthology, Homesickness and Exile, will be reading at the Story Museum.

The director of National Poetry Day, Susannah Herbert, was due to be pressing Think of a Poem stickers on Waitrose shoppers in the Westfield shopping centre in White City, west London, this morning, with ukelele-playing poet Rhian Edwards alongside her, hoping to make poetry out of shopping lists.

Later in the day in London, the Southbank Centre and the Poetry Society were celebrating National Poetry Day with an afternoon of free events, from 1-6pm. It begins with the best of children’s poetry from  Joseph Coelho, John Hegley and Julia Donaldson. From 2.30-4.30pm there will be poems and performances for young people from Ross Sutherland, Raymond Antrobus, Joshua Idehen, Joelle Taylor, and poetry films from Benjamin Zephaniah, Dizraeli, Marian Allen and Hollie McNish. From 4.45-6pm there will be readings from the new Forward prize winner Kei Miller, Daljit Nagra, Emily Berry, Hannah Silva and Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze.