News at Eleven: Today marks the start of the Poetry Parnassus,

the largest poetry festival ever staged in the UK, featuring poets from over 200 participating nations. Poet and Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre, Simon Armitage, who will be leading the event, commented: 'My hunch is that this will be the biggest poetry event ever--a truly global coming together of poets and a monumental poetic happening worthy of the spirit and history of the Olympics themselves.' Ahead of the week's festivities we asked six participating poets for their thoughts on this momentous gathering:

from Granta: Poetry Parnassus
then The Guardian: Simon Armitage: 'In Poetry Parnassus, the only constant is language'
then BBC News: Poetry Parnassus: Meet the poets from Albania, India and Uganda
then The Guardian: Poetry Parnassus interactive map: verse from each olympic nation

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