The Second China Poetry Festival on Saturday opened in China’s historic city of Xi’an, capital of 13 dynasties including the Tang (AD 618-907) when poetry reached its peak and gave rise to some of China’s greatest poets in history.

The six-day festival attracted 130 noted poets nationwide and featured poetry forums, drama plays and folk operas that pay tribute to China’s leading poets Li Bai and Du Fu in Tang Dynasty.

The festival also invites 10,000 young students to join celebrity poets in a poem-reading event to be held on Monday at one of the city’s symbolic tourist attractions Dayan Pagoda.

This year’s festival, described as a “homecoming of poetry” by the poet Lei Zhenyan, is co-sponsored by Shannxi provincial government, the Ministry of Culture and Chinese Writers Association.