President of Vietnam Writers' Association Tran Gia Thai opens Vietnam Poetry Day (photo: hanoimoi.vn)

The theme "Country Harmony" evokes Vietnam’s Great National Unity. The main activities will take place between Doan Mon gate and the Hanoi Flag Tower. On Friday, the public can visit the Memory House and Poetry Street, and participate in a poetry quiz, exchanges with new and established poets, and activities of poetry clubs in the Poetry Inn.

The Memory House are displaying memorabilia, artifacts, and works of 12 poets, including poet-President Ho Chi Minh and 11 Ho Chi Minh Prize-winning poets. The Memory House was constructed in the style of a long house of the central highlanders.

On Saturday, the first full moon day of the lunar year, there will be a discussion by poets and literary critics about the relationship between poetry and willpower, and a Poetry Night featuring the poetry of Vietnam’s 54 ethnic groups. Poets representing Kinh, Tay, Thai, Muong, Dao, and other ethnic groups will introduce masterpieces of Vietnamese ethnic folk literature like the Tay work "Hundred Birds and Hundred Flowers", the Muong  work "Give birth to the land", and the Thai work "Farewell to the lover”.

The Poetry Street is adorned with leaves featuring decorative patterns on the costumes of Vietnamese ethnic people. On each leaf will be a beautiful poem selected by the Organizing Committee. There will be 54 verses, corresponding to the 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam.

Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen The Ky, Chairman of the Central Council of Literary and Art Theory and Criticism, said: "Vietnam Poetry Day is an important event, when poets, writers and the public show their pride in Vietnamese poetry of the past and present."

Vietnamese Poetry Day was first held in 2003 and has made Vietnamese poems better known to the public.