A Russian poet recites a poem online at the Xu Zhimo International Poetry Festival held in Jiaxing on March 30. [Photo/cnjxol.com]

The Xu Zhimo International Poetry Festival was held in Haining, Jiaxing, the hometown of renowned Chinese poet Xu Zhimo (1897-1931), on March 30, local media reported.

In addition to organizing a wide variety of online and offline activities, sponsors of the festival will also cooperate with international institutions and universities to solicit poems from both Chinese and foreigners.

Founded in 2005, the Xu Zhimo Poetry Festival has become one of the three major poetry festivals in China.

Influenced by Rabindranath Tagore's The Crescent Moon, Xu helped found the Crescent Society in 1923, an important poetry school in the history of modern Chinese poetry, and later founded the monthly magazine Crescent Monthly.