The pandemic may have reduced global travel, but it was not an obstacle for writers and poets to express their opinions and thoughts in the modern world.
The International Festival of Poetry and Liquor in Luzhou met in a virtual world last year in October. Chinese poets, writers, translators, cultural scholars and poets from Cuba, Serbia, Colombia, the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries who have settled in China for a long time gathered in Luzhou, and international poets from more than 50 countries also participated online.
With the theme being “Let Poetry and Wine Warm Everyone” the festival’s organizers sent out letters to global poets, seeking their views on how the coronavirus affected their lives and what could be done for the well-being of mankind.
Serbian poet Dragan Dragojlovic was among the first to write back.
"As the International Poetry Festival met online, the organizers invited poets with a proposal to submit three poems and an essay in English with the theme being "Let Poetry and Wine Warm Everyone. One of the propositions was not to spread neither hatred or intolerance towards anyone in the poems. Poets from around the world competed in the English group. We all had to send an essay to read online. While we were reading, the audience could follow us via link", said Mr Dragojlović for SBS Serbian.
"My poems were optimistic, that produce a good mood and encouragement in difficult times during coronavirus, they talk about human brotherhood. My poems have a positive spirit. In the end, poetry has purposes only if it spreads humanism. In one poem, I mentioned one of the greatest Chinese poets from the ancient time Du Fu who lived in that city."
"I was so was pleasantly surprised when I got the word that I had received the award because a number of poets from all over the world who participated was huge. When you participate in the festival in China, you are followed by so many millions of people which is not possible in any other country in the world. China Writers Association "Poetry Magazine" who is one of the organisers said more than 100 million people followed the festival."
The International Festival of Poetry & Liquor and the 5th liquor-themed art and culture week was held in Luzhou, a city famous for its liquor industry in southwest China's Sichuan Province, aiming to spread Chinese poetry and liquor culture and promote cultural exchanges between China and other countries.
Dragan Dragojlovic, Serbian poet and novelist, is the author of “Death’s Homeland” and translator of Chinese poet Zhao Lihong's collection into Serbian. His own poetry collection “Book of Love” has been translated into Chinese and published in 2013 by the East China Normal University Press in Shanghai.
Mr Dragan Dragojlovic, as an author of more than 20 books, has been uniquely popular-read, sold, and reprinted multiple times. Among his many works, poems selected into "Deaths Homeland" have been acclaimed as the most poignant and moving collection of anti-war poems ever read. Mr Dragan Dragojlovic is a Serbian poet, novelist and diplomat serving as the Serbian Ambassador in Canberra 1997-2001. Media often referred to him as "the poet ambassador".
See the Simplified Chinese/Mandarin version
塞尔维亚诗人荣获国际诗酒文化大会优秀作品奖
