Poetry to highlight Spring Festival gala

A poetry-themed TV gala is expected to greet people ahead of the coming Chinese New Year. The show, scheduled to be recorded in Beijing on Jan 16 by China Writers Publishing Group, a government-backed organization, and People's Daily Online, the website of the national newspaper, will be aired via the organizers' main websites simultaneously.

Well-known Chinese poets from all over the world will be invited to participate, including Xi Murong, a famous Taiwan poet whose poems are cited in Chinese textbooks, according to Zhu Ling, chief editor of www.zgshige.com, a new website launched by China Writers Publishing Group to provide grassroots poets with exposure.

"The Spring Festival TV gala is kind of a carnival that people really love and enjoy watching. We hope to inject the concept of poetry into the gala," said Yang Zhixue, director for literature and publishing management at the same group. "By combining poetry of profound cultural connotation with the stage of gala, we hope to connect our feelings for the motherland, family and friends."

"We expect positive feedback from the public," Yang added.

To draw more domestic poets to the show, the organizer announced awards of up to 10,000 yuan ($1,600) for good poems under the theme of "warming up our home", a topic usually discussed by Chinese at the end of a lunar year, when it is time for people living away from their native places to go visit them.

In 2016, the Chinese New Year will be celebrated on Feb 8.

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