Covert nighttime event is poetry in motion

"Poems are not something we put on the altar to worship. Everyone can employ them to express their feelings and thoughts. They come from daily life and should be part of our lives. That's exactly why we deliver poetry to people's doorsteps instead of holding a poetry reading," Li, 27, tells China Daily.

He says he does not like the idea of a group of people coming in from nowhere and reading a poem for someone they don't know, especially for those doing humble jobs.

"It is actually separating "us" from "them". It will strengthen the view that poems only belong to a certain kind of people. We just want to offer access and the rest is up to them," he says.

Zhang Jie, a postgraduate student in northeastern Jilin province, was in Beijing for a job interview when she saw the information about the activity online and signed up for it.

Zhang, 25, who is not a regular poetry reader, says she found the idea very exciting and a bit rebellious. "It met the needs of young people seeking adventure. People think we are holding advertisement flyers, which are not welcomed, but we are not, that's cool," she says.

Her team covered the central business district, which is not busy on a Sunday night. However, security guards at some of the mansions there thwarted their plans, something they expected.

"Many white collar workers might be too busy to read poems and many of them live far from their offices, traveling a long way to work every day. If I were them, I would be happy to find a poem pasted at the entrance of my office building in the morning," says Zhang.

Yu Tianyu and her team members were in charge of the Houhai Lake area, a bar district, where many people stand in front of the pubs trying to persuade passers-by to enter them.

When the canvassers approached them, instead of running away, they gave them the sheets containing the poems and encouraged them to read them.

Most of them were very shy and said they did not know how to read poems. "But one guy was pretty interested and did it with full emotion. And when we passed him again, he smiled to us like an old friend," she says.

"Today, many people might think reading poetry is something only the elite do, and is very distant from the life of those working in bars. However, you don't need lots of education to be touched by a poem."

The 25-year-old says she majored in literature in college and poetry was a daily topic among her friends.

She came to Beijing from Chengdu in southwestern Sichuan province a few months ago to start an internship in a research institute.

"Life in Beijing is not easy. Everything is expensive. I sometimes think of going back. But attending such an event made me realize how many interesting people there are in the city and I want to meet more of them," says Yu.

It was almost midnight when her team completed its mission and one of her teammates, who lives far from downtown, missed her last train. Yu then welcomed her to stay at her place.

"I wouldn't have taken her home if I had met her somewhere else. But I think people who love poems can't be too bad," she says.