A unique traveling poetry festival, CANTO, leading up to World Poetry Day was held in the country from March 15 to 19, 2023. The four-day multilingual, multicultural poetry festival took place in a hybrid manner at various venues in New Delhi and Kolkata. It brought together globally acclaimed poets, University of Chicago faculty members, academics, and scholars in India to discuss poetry and its future in South Asia, USA, and beyond.
Some renowned poets who participated in the poetry festival included: Man International Booker Prize and T.S. Elliot Prize winner George Szirtes, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner Vijay Seshadri, PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award winner Wendy Doniger, Forward Prize winner Tishani Doshi, Commonwealth Writers' Prize winner Amit Chaudhuri, and Sahitya Akademi Award winners Joy Goswami, Anita Nair, and Arundhati Subramaniam, among other.
