The festival has been dedicated to poet Shamsur Rahman.

National Poetry Council at a press conference in the city yesterday said poet Syed Shamsul Haq will inaugurate the 21st poetry festival on DU Central Library premises around 10:00am.

As an extension to the festival, an exhibition will begin today at Gallery Chitrak where renowned artists like Amirul Islam, Qayyum Chowdhury and Rafiqun Nabi will paint the imagery of famous poems of Shamsur Rahman, Syed Shamsul Haq, Rafiq Azad and other eminent poets.

Faiz Ahmed will inaugurate this exhibition around 5:00pm today while Qayyum Chowdhury, Johra Rahman, Falguni Kundu and others are expected to be present there.

A number of foreign poets, responding to poetry council's invitation, will join the festival. They are: Nirendranath Chakrabarti, Samarendra Sen Gupta, Kamol De Sarker, Ranojit Das, Ratul Dev Barman, Syed Hasnat Jalal, Bithi Chattapadhyay, Naser Hossain, Arne Johnson, Niklas Soderberg, Henrick C Enboham, Clara Diesen and Liakat Hossain.

The National Poetry Council President poet Rabiul Hossain, General Secretary Samudra Gupta, convener of the festival's organising committee Habibullah Siraji, and Muhammad Samad, Aslam Sani and others were present at the press conference.