One of China's migrant millions, Guan said his love for poetry never died. He learned of the poets' gathering from a local newspaper, and took his own works there hoping to meet some of the best-known poets.

    Most of Guan's works are pastoral, based on the rural life of his hometown.

    "Wandering stream around my humble home, with weeping willows over its roof, wild geese frolicking in the water, and cattle dozing off in the shade," read one of his poems.

    Twenty-nine-year-old Zheng Xiaoqiong shares Guan's sentiments and experience.

    The migrant factory worker in Shenzhen and one of the country's best-known poets, is known for putting the migrant population's hardship and struggle in city life behind her beautiful, often sentimental lines.

    "That tired man from the countryside, cautious and timid, like a dim lamplight in the shade" was the portrait of a typical migrant laborer in a hardware plant where Zheng worked for four years.

    "I keep trying, to put that feeling into words; it's poignant, like a burning iron, that scorches my body, my soul."

    She described what it felt like to be a migrant worker in one of her poems.

    Such poems impressed Hirshfield, whose love of poetry and Chinese culture brought her to the event.

    She was surprised by the widespread enthusiasm for poetry writing in China, even among peasants and migrant laborers, Hirshfield told Xinhua.

    "These people have in fact become a major group of poetry writers in China," said Prof. Shen Qi with Xi'an University of Finance and Economics. "Their works spread fast on the Internet."

    Just 10 years ago, before the Internet became popular, it was still difficult for these amateur poets to publish their works because the country's few literary magazines didn't have enough pages even to carry works by the best-known poets, said Prof. Li Zhen, a poetry critic with Shaanxi Normal University.

    Last year, about 70,000 poems were printed on China's leading literary magazines, while at least 200,000 well-written pieces were published by the online media, said Yang Kuanghan, a researcher with Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

    The Chinese Poetry Association, a non-governmental organization of poetry lovers, now has 2 million members compared with the 16,000 upon its establishment in 1987. An additional 43,000 people have registered as members on its online forum, which opened in 2003, and posted more than 10 million poems.

    "Many of these members are migrant workers who take delight in poetry writing," said Zhou Duwen, a researcher on Chinese poetry. "They have helped revive and diversify Chinese poetry."