Daily SumUp

The 9th Xu Zhimo International Poetry and Arts Festival has kicked off at King's College, Cambridge.

Poets, artists and scholars from Britain, Europe and China have joined this arts exchange festival. Seminars, exhibitions, and book reading are being held in King's College in the world-famous English city.

According to Zilan Wang, the festival organizer, this year's event aims to celebrate the opportunities to meet in person again and embrace the profound beauty of human connection through the power of poetry and arts.

Since 2014, the Xu Zhimo International Poetry and Arts Festival has become a revered platform for poets, artists and scholars from around the world to gather and celebrate the beauty of language, culture, and art.

Xu Zhimo was a great Chinese poet who studied at King's College in the 1920s. He made many friends there among leading scholars, thinkers, and fellow writers and artists including Virginia Wolf, Katherine Mansfield and Roger Fry. 

His poem Second Farewell to Cambridge is a much-loved anthology piece in China, and it is learnt by all Chinese schoolchildren. Largely due to the popularity of this poem, thousands of Chinese tourists visit Cambridge every year, which has led this festival to become one of the most internationally influential arts festivals in the United Kingdom.