Barcelona changed the El Clasico storyline on Sunday after thrashing Real Madrid 0-4, cementing the resurgence that newly appointed coach, Xavi Hernandez, is spearheading.

Real Madrid have been the dominant team, having their best Clasico run in years. The Galaticos have won the last five meetings in all competitions and stayed 15 points clear of Barcelona in La Liga before the game.

Xavi has managed to assemble a team made up of mostly young people in a very short time, who keep springing surprises in every match. Tearing the Madrid team apart on Sunday was an addition to the winning streak that has run since Xavi took over.

It was Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang who opened the scoring in the 29th minute and netted one more at the 51st to claim a brace. The former Arsenal man has been on rampage since he controversially left the London side in January, scoring nine goals in 11 appearances. Both Ferran Torres and Ronald Araujo, who headed home a corner from the box, scored to seal the match for Barcelona.

Barcelona is pushing to make a full recovery from the crises that forced its former president Josep Bartomeu to resign and its best player Lionel Messi to be sold last summer to French side Paris Saint Germaine (PSG).

Xavi, Barcelona’s legend, who spent his entire playing career at the club, was hired in November after Andy Koeman failed to revive the team. Xavi’s deep knowledge of Barcelona’s philosophy has been seen in the team’s recent outings. Barca beat Italian side Napoli, 2-4 last month in Europa League playoff to clinch a place in the competition after their woeful ouster from the Champions League. The Barca’s win over Napoli followed a 1-4 bashing of Valencia in La Liga.

The rejuvenated and revitalized team has maintained the intensity since, scoring up to four goals in most matches, a clear contrast to the results under Koeman, when the team struggled to score more than one goal. Xavi had admitted that the job is “the biggest challenge of my career”, and complained that he was finding it hard to understand his players. However, the 41-year old expressed optimism.

“We will try to make the players happy. We will have to work hard and with clear objectives of trying to win, it is clear. I am very positive and will have to work a lot to make things click,” Xavi had said.

However, while the club and fans rejoice as the team retrace its steps to the glorious days, it may not be the same for Messi, who is clearly not enjoying his stay in Lique1. What the Argentine astro has ever wanted was a rejuvenated and revitalized team that can take on any team without being humiliated. Alas when his dream team became a reality, he couldn’t be part of it.

March 21 annually is being commemorated as World Poetry Day. A decision to proclaim 21st of March as an annual World Poetry Day was adopted during the 30th session of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) conference, held in Paris, France in the year 1999.

One of the main objectives of the day is to support linguistic diversity through poetic expressions, and to offer endangered languages the opportunity to be heard within their respective communities. In celebrating World Poetry Day, UNESCO recognizes the unique ability of poetry to capture the creative spirit of the human mind.

The prime purpose or one of the major goals of World Poetry Day is to bring attention to the importance of poetry in the conservation of old languages, in human growth in general, and in bringing about global awareness.

Poetry – a genre of literature – which is a collection of series of poems, can be defined as a literary work in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by the use of distinctive style and rhythm. It’s a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities of language such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre, to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning.

Poetry has a long history or lineage, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. Early poems evolved from folk songs such as the Chinese Shijing, or from a need to retell oral epics. Ancient attempts to define Poetry focused on the uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song and comedy.

Later attempts concentrated mainly on features not unlike repetition, verse form and rhyme, as well as emphasized the aesthetics which distinguish poetry from more objectively informative, prosaic forms of writing.

From the middle of the twentieth century, poetry has sometimes been more generally regarded as a fundamental creative act that employs language. Poetry uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretation to words, or to evoke emotive responses.

In poetic presentation, devices including assonance, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve musical or incantatory effects. The use of ambiguity, symbolism, irony or sarcasm, and other stylistic elements of poetic diction invariably leaves a poem open to multiple interpretations.

Similarly, figures of speech to include metaphor, simile and metonym create a resonance between otherwise disparate images – a layering of meanings, forming connections previously not perceived.

Some poetry types are not unconnected with particular cultures and genres, and respond to features of the language in which the poet writes. Most modern poetry reflect a critique of poetic tradition, playing with and testing among other things, the principle of euphony, sometimes altogether forgoing rhyme or set rhythm. Perhaps, in today’s increasingly globalized world, poets often adapt forms, styles and techniques from diverse cultures and languages.

Because of its nature of emphasizing linguistic form rather than using language purely for its content, poetry seems so difficult to translate from one language into another. A possible example of this is the Hebrew Psalms, where the beauty is found more in the balance of ideas than in specific vocabulary.

In most poetry, it is the connotations and the weight of words that are majorly important. Such attributes can be difficult to interpret, thereby causing different readers to hear or understand a particular piece of poetry differently. While there are logical interpretations, the truth of the matter is that, there can never be a definitive or specific interpretation attached to a particular poem.

So far, by painstakingly considering the use of poetry in various artistic areas or fictional works such as folk tales, advertisement, music, short stories, children’s literature, drama or play, prose, and what have you, anyone can easily assert that its significance in both human and societal development cannot be overemphasized.

Poetry has indeed created an enormous positive impact on literature, and has contributed immensely in the promotion of languages, cultures and education in general. It could therefore be regarded as one of the major recipes responsible for mankind’s happy living.

No doubt, poetry has succeeded in awakening man’s quest for learning or discovery as well as his interest to educate, entertain or inform his immediate society through the use of any language within his reach. Apparently, the use of sarcasm or irony in poetic presentations is one of the yardsticks that signify how far poetry can go while conveying messages irrespective of its content.

As Nigeria joins the global community in marking the 2022 World Poetry Day, Nigerians are enjoined to endeavour to promote the unique role of poetry in literature by understanding the fact that poetry reaffirms our common humanity by revealing to us that individuals – anywhere in the world – share the same questions and feelings.

Hence, we ought to comprehend that poetry is the mainstay of oral tradition; and over centuries, can communicate or convey the innermost values of diverse cultures. Above all, we should always note that poetry is the only genre of literature that saves time, space as well as energy, and can be written or expressed in any language as it pleases the writer.

On this background, every concerned stakeholder such as parents, guardians, counsellors, and teachers, among others, needs to vigorously contribute its quota towards ensuring that the unique art of poetry will no longer be considered as an outdated form of literature, but one which enables any society to regain and assert its real identity.

It’s noteworthy that it is better late than never, considering the anticipated impact of this lofty crusade.