Thought For The Day – Friday 21st March 2025
World Poetry Day
Thank you very much for your work this week. You may be interested to know that tomorrow, on “Non-League Day”, in football, encouraging people to support their important local clubs and teams,, the men’s football Premier League trophy will be displayed (from 6 p.m.) before the Saturday evening match between Takeley Football Club and Saffron Walden Town Football Club. Thank you to all local organizations, in the U.K., and around the world, sporting and otherwise, driven by wonderful volunteers, for all they do.
Today is World Poetry Day.
Thank you very much to the brilliant English department for all they do to inspire, and nurture, a love of poetry.
The theme for World Poetry Day 2025 is very appropriate in these times: “Poetry for Peace and Unity“.
This theme highlights poetry’s role in fostering harmony, bridging cultures, and expressing deep human emotions.
As poetry, by definition, involves an economy of beautiful expression, this message today, will, at least, be short.
Save to say that, on Robben Island, where he was imprisoned for standing up to negative prejudice and negative discrimination, Nelson Mandela took inspiration from a poem, “Invictus”, written in 1875 , by W.E. Henley.
This poem would guide Nelson, his integrity and his values in the most challenging of situations.
In Robben Island and beyond, Nelson’s outstanding moral example, which would turn racist prison guards, ensured that, when he was released, he would practice love and reconciliation to all. Then, Nelson practiced “peace and unity”, the theme for today.
The poem “Invictus”, is movingly read in the film “Invictus” on Robben Island: https://youtu.be/THlTswF-HfU?si=I8-t5BFsiCtZHC6O&t=77
A scene from the film “Invictus”: “How do we inspire ourselves to greatness when nothing else will do? How do we inspire everyone around us? I sometimes think it is by using the work of others. On Robben Island, I often took inspiration in a poem. Just words. But they helped me to stand”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U91D1gfUbgs
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