Casablanca's international poetry festival winds up

For four days, Casablanca, Morocco's economic capital, turned into a poetry capital as poets from several countries flocked to attend the international poetry festival that wound up Saturday.

In addition to reading their poems, participants were invited to visit events hosted by the city, such as music concerts, painting exhibitions and a two-day colloquy on "poets in modern times."

The festival, sponsored by Casablanca's local authorities and "Morocco's house of poetry," also sent to UNESCO director general, Federico Mayor, a message calling for marking April 8 as the international poetry day. The initiative was received by the UNESCO chief, who said he is ready to study the proposal.

Renowned poets attended the festival such as Syrian Adonis, Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish, Turkish Ozdemir Ince, French Andre Velter, Danish Inger Christensen, Iraqi Saadi Youssef, and Moroccans Abdellatif Laabi, Mohamed Serghini and Abdelkrim Tabbal. American poet, Robert Kelly, who could not attend, sent a beautiful poem on Casablanca.