International poetry festival promotes literary exchanges

2016/09/07

The 2016 Formosa International Poetry Festival is underway in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District, bringing together more than 30 poets from countries and territories including Bangladesh, Colombia, Iraq and Japan with the goal of building a cultural bridge between Taiwan and the world through literary exchanges.

Staged Sept. 1-20, the second annual FIPF features an array of activities such as book launches, exhibitions of classic and contemporary publications, poetry readings and seminars. Organizers have also arranged for participating authors to tour some of Tamsui’s historic attractions, including Aletheia University and Fort Santo Domingo.

One of the major events of the festival was an awards ceremony held Sept. 3 by the Taiwan Literature International Communication Society to honor three poets, Mario Mathor from Colombia, Aminur Rahman of Bangladesh and Japan’s Kae Morii, for promoting exchanges between their homelands and Taiwan. Works by the three will be translated into Chinese and sent to libraries and museums around Taiwan to enhance the nation’s literary resources and environment.

The inaugural FIPF was staged last September in southern Taiwan’s Tainan City as part of celebrations for the 10th anniversary of the Poets of the World Movement (PPdM) founded by Chilean author Luis Arias Manzo. Both editions of the festival were organized by renowned local poet and PPdM Vice President for Asia Lee Kuei-shien.

Born in 1937 in Taipei, Lee started his writing career in the 1950s, helping found the Taiwan PEN literary collective in 1987. He has won numerous honors at home and abroad for his children’s books, literary criticism, poetry and translations.

Lee was chosen as poet of the year in 1997 by magazine Poets International, India. In 2000, he was named Poet of the Millennium by the India-based International Poets Academy, which also nominated him on three occasions during the 2000s as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Tu Miao-yi, a poet, novelist and the president of TLICS, said Lee has helped strengthen literary ties between Taiwan and other countries through his poetry, translations of foreign works and efforts to promote people-to-people exchanges. “Through his writing, Lee paved a road for Taiwan literature to gain international recognition,” Tu said, adding that the enthusiasm of established poets such as Mathor toward FIPF serves as evidence of Lee’s influence abroad.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=247710&ctNode=2194&mp=9)