Nation hosts first Asia-Pacific Poetry Festival
By Ha Linh in Hanoi
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| A scene from Vietnamese Poetry Day last year - Photo: Phan Duy Kha |
The Asia-Pacific Poetry Festival will be held in the northern province of Quang Ninh and Hanoi from Thursday to Monday.
The Vietnam Writers’ Association announced that the Quang Ninh leg of the festival will have 81 poets from nations including Russia, the U.S., the U.K., Japan, South Korea,
Indonesia, Singapore, Canada, China and India.
Vice-president of the association, poet Nguyen Quang Thieu, said this is the first time that Vietnam will host the festival, titled ‘Poetry for a peaceful, cooperative and developed Asia-Pacific’.
The guests include Korean poet Ko Un who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 2011 and Ahn Kuyn Hwan who translated Ho Chi Minh’s noted poem collection ‘Nhat Ky Trong Tu’ (Diary in Jail) into Korean, American poet Lady Borton who received the Peace Award by the War Resisters’ League under the London-based War
Resisters’ International organization in 1988, Ban’ya Natsuishi, chairman of the Japanese Haiku Poem Association and New Zealander author Sue Wootton together with 40 local poets.
The festival will feature a range of activities including an opening ceremony, seminar and an international poetry night.
The tenth Vietnamese Poetry Day will be held on Sunday after the Hanoi part of the festival ends at the Temple of Literature on Saturday. Poetry day will be divided into two sections, traditional and international, instead of old and new like in past years.