The international Chinese prose poem competition held by the Chinese-foreign Prose Poem Association opened in the island province of Hainan, south China, on Thursday.

About 100 prose poem writers from six countries, including China, the United States, Australia and Canada gathered beside Nanli Lake in Ding'an town in Hainan to spend a month writing.

The subject of the competition is the beautiful Nanli Lake and the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Hainan Special Economic Zone.

The winners will be rewarded in April.

The Chinese-foreign Prose Poem Association, founded last October, is a folk association covering over 30 provinces and regions in China and six other countries. It now has 1,500 members in China and overseas.

The association founded a writing base at Nanli Lake on Thursday for annual activities to enhance the development of prose poetry, said Haimeng, chairperson of the association.

(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2008)