On a night cruise along Guangzhou's Pearl River in southern China's Guangdong Province, poets from China and the Arab world sat on the open deck, talking quietly between readings as city lights slid across the water.
"I thought we would simply read poetry in a hotel, or perhaps in a conference room. Maybe visit one or two museums," the Tunisian poet Anouar Ben Hassine said. "But it feels like a dream—I keep saying it… it feels like a dream."
"Then what would you say if the dream woke up?"
"Come back. You have no choice."
The May 12 river cruise marked the closing moments of the Guangdong leg of the 2026 International Youth Poetry Festival (China-Arab States Session), a five-day cultural programme that brought together more than 100 poets, writers and literature scholars from Arab countries and China.
The festival which runs until May 17, will continue with its Beijing leg. It is organized by the China Writers Association. Since its launch in 2024, it has grown into a platform for cross-cultural literary exchange among young writers from China and other regions. The China-Arab Session is divided into two stages: the Guangdong leg, followed by a final programme in Beijing, where the festival concludes on May 17.
In Guangdong, participants spent five days moving between Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The programme combined visits to both historical and contemporary urban spaces, including the Cantonese Opera Art Museum, Canton Tower, Tencent, Huawei, and Shenzhen Bay Cultural Park. These places reflected two layers of the region: Guangzhou's long cultural history, and Shenzhen's rapid development driven by technology and innovation.
Across both cities, the schedule included poetry readings, cultural visits, and group discussions. But often, the most meaningful moments happened outside the formal programme—on buses, over meals, and in quiet conversations between participants.
What stood out most was not only what people saw, but how deeply they responded to the experience.
"I'm so happy to be back in Guangzhou again. This city holds some of the most difficult memories of my life. Before arriving, I had already decided to write a poem for the city. When I was writing, I became so overwhelmed by emotion that at times I was unable to continue. The poem became my personal gift to Guangzhou that I deeply cherish." —Mira Ahmed, author of City of Flowers.
"On the road to Shenzhen, there are a lot of hills and trees, and a lot of green. The green always reminds me of something about fertilizing a successful future. I also felt at home—the Chinese people are so inviting and I really appreciate it. And then I wrote a poem. I never thought I could write here, but it came suddenly. That is poetry—you cannot fully control it." —Anouar Ben Hassine, author of Guangzhou.
Taken together, these voices form a shared impression of the journey: poetry here was not abstract or distant, but closely tied to lived experience. It appeared in movement, in landscapes, in encounters, and in emotion.
And as these moments accumulated, a question quietly surfaced: In a world still marked by conflict and uncertainty, does poetry and literature still matter?
For many participants, the answer was not stated directly, but revealed through experience.
Poetry, in Guangdong, was not separate from reality. It emerged inside it—fragile, immediate, and deeply human—formed in the act of travelling, meeting, and speaking across languages. In that sense, what was written here was not a conclusion. It was something still unfolding, still moving forward, like the river that carried the final night away.
Reporter: Li Muzi
Photo: Nanfang Plus
