Today, My Poetic Side looks at the League of Canadian Poets’ Awards, the Israeli street that has been named after a poet, and the commemoration of Ferdowsi day in Tehran.

2020 Poetry Awards – League of Canadian Poets

The League of Canadian Poets have made an announcement about the winners of this year’s awards. There are four categories in total and each category winner receives a cash prize of $2000.

Each of the categories is named for an important member of the league, there are prizes for a first book of poetry, a book by a Canadian female poet, a book written by a member of the league and finally an award in the category of spoken word poetry.

This year’s winners were Heather Birrell for “Float and Scurry, Chantal Gibson for “How She Read”, Roxanna Bennett for “Unmeaningable” and in the spoken word category Charlie C Petch.

The awards were started in 1966 and were created to help advance and nurture the writing of Canadian poets. The league itself is made up of poets and they also assist in the judging of the entries in the annual contest.

Israeli Street Named After Poet

The Embassy of Israel in India has recently posted photos of a street in Tel Aviv that has been named after Rabindranath Tagore to their Twitter account. The photos appeared on the occasion of the 159^th anniversary of the birth of the poet.

Shared on the Israel in India platform on Twitter the photo is part of the work to promote relations between the two countries as well as friendship and economic growth.

The street, Rehov Tagore, begins just opposite the Tel Aviv University. The photo which showed the street sign had the caption

The decision to name the street is not a new one, apparently the choice of name was decided back in 1961 and it was considered to be a good way to mark the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Tagore, one of the greatest Indian poets.

The 25^th day of Boishakh, the Bengali month, is when the traditional celebrations for the poets birthday take place.

Every year, Tagore’s birthday is celebrated on the 25th day of the Bengali month of Boishakh. Tagore was not just a poet who was very well known all over the world, but also a polymath and in 1913 he also became the first Asian to be awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature. The award was given for Gitanjali, his celebrated collection of poetry.

Tehran Webinar Commemorates Ferdowsi Day

A webinar was held yesterday to commemorate Ferdowsi Day, which will fall on 15^th May. There were a number of speeches delivered by members of the country’s literati.

During the webinar, the director of the Book City Institute called Shahnameh lauded the poet’s masterpiece as the most valuable piece of literature in the Persian language, and referenced how important it is to the culture and civilisation of Persia.