The Olympics may be a couple of weeks away, but the festivities are already beginning in the literary world.

As part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, the games’ arts and culture festival, more than 200 poets from around the world came together over the past few days for an open forum on poetry called Poetry Parnassus.

The Nicaraguan poet Gioconda Belli told The New York Times that it “‘widens your understanding of life and of humanity,’ and enables poets to ‘relativize what is happening’ in their own lives and country and  ’to feel part of this global chorus.’”

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The poet Carol Ann Duffy was chosen as poet laureate of England today, the first female poet named laureate since the post was first created over 340 years ago.

Duffy follows former laureate Andrew Motion, and according to the NY Times, she will serve in the post for 10 years. The first honoree was Edmund Spenser, and other laureates included William Wordsworth, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Ted Hughes.

Here’s more from the article: “Ms. Duffy, 53, is known for writing accessible, often witty poems on a wide range of topics, many of them to do with the minutiae of everyday life … The culture secretary, Andy Burnham, called Ms. Duffy ‘a towering figure in English literature today and a superb poet.’” (Photo via)