In its 19^th year, National Poetry Day — the biggest nationwide poetry event of the year —will be boosted by the partnership between the New Zealand Book Awards Trust and Phantom Billstickers, with a sponsorship agreement announced today.

The highly popular and eclectic National Poetry Day will now be known as Phantom Poetry Day and will continue to bring poetry to the people, with over 80 events held nationwide. Involving everyone from seasoned award winners to aspiring poets facing the microphone for the first time, Phantom National Poetry Day will be held on Friday August 26 this year and continue the day’s legacy of taking poetry to the people from Kerikeri to Southland, across the streets of small towns and major cities.

“It's an opportunity to hear more poetry. There’s the possibility to take it back to the regions that built us,” says Jim Wilson, owner of Phantom, “We’ve been putting the New Zealand voice out there for some time. Now with this exciting partnership that voice will become louder.”

Phantom National Poetry Day is about discovery, diversity, community and pushing boundaries. Poetry enthusiasts generate events such as slams, poetry-music jams, poetry art exhibitions, performance poetry, poetry and dance, poetry street chalking, bookshop and library readings, open mic events and poetry writing competitions.

Nicola Legat, chair of the New Zealand Book Awards Trust says “We have long admired Phantom’s commitment to putting poems on posters and in cafes via their Café Reader. They are a natural partner given that Phantom’s business is taking messages to the streets and that’s what the New Zealand Book Awards Trust aspires to do with poetry.”