On the evening of June 14th, the “Chinese Dragon Festival & Poetic Yichang—2018 Poem Party for celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival in Quyuan’s Hometown” was held in Yichang Theater where performers, as this photo shows, were reciting the poem, Commemorating Quyuan. (Photographed by Journalist Fu Beibei)

　　On the evening of June 14th, the “Chinese Dragon Festival & Poetic Yichang—2018 Poem Party for celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival in Quyuan’s Hometown” co-sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and People’s Government of Hubei Province was put on in Yichang Theater. Jidi Majia, Vice President and Secretary of the China Writers’ Association and a famous contemporary poem, Huang Wentao, Director of the Communication Bureau of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, Wang Yanling, Provincial Standing Committee Member and Publicity Ministry, Zhou Ji, Provincial Standing Committee Member and Municipal Committee Secretary, Chen Anli, Vice Provincial Governor, and Yang Yuhua, Vice President of the Provincial People’s Consultative Conference attended the Poem Party.

　　Accompanied by a melodious bell, the Poem Party was unveiled by the preface of Commemorating Qu Yuan. The gorgeous sand painting drew forth the first part of “Living Nearby the Yangtze River”. Poems with elements of “Yichang”, “Yangtze River”, “Three Gorges” and “Dragon Boat’s Festival” were sung or recited by artists to express the most soulful monologue for Yichang.

　　In the pathetic and touching sound of the Chinese zither, the Poem Party moved into the middle chapter, “Love in Sounds and Paintings”. Famous recitation artists, including Qu Xianhe and Xu Tao, recited poems, including Pipa Song of Zhao Jun, Mother, Grateful to the Land and Hallucination, along warm background images to eulogize friendship, love and kinship.

　　In the final part, “Singing the New Era”, all recitation artists recited Grateful to the New Era together sonorously. On the background screen, videos about Yichang’s ecological restoration of the Yangtze River and promotion of the new era development were played, pushing the whole Poem Party to a new height. This showed not only Yichang’s determination to “enhance environmental protection and prevent excessive development”, but also its responsibility to safeguard the clean water here.

　　The Poem Party came to a conclusion along the theme song of the “Poem City”, The Town in Poems. The familiar rhythms again made audiences recall the past days of the “Poem City” and “Poem Party”. (Reporter Lei Chuntao)