More than 20 poets from the Republic of Moldova and Romania came together for the Fourth International Epigram Festival “Donici, Cuib de Intelepciune”, which was held in Chisinau on Saturday, October 18, Info-Prim Neo reports. The official opening of the Festival took place on the Classic Writers' Alley in the Public Garden and was attended by what the president of Moldova Writers' Union, Mihai Cimpoi, called “the cream of the Romanian humor”, including poets like Efim Tarlapan, Gheorghe Balici, Ioan Marinescu-Puiu,Vasile Larco, Gheorghe Suciu, Ioan Toderascu, Vasile Placintă, Apostol Constanta, Arcadie Chirsbaum, as well as the chairman of the Moldovan Epigrammatists' Union, Ion Diviza, and his Romanian counterpart, George Corbu. Speaking at the ceremony, Academician Mihai Cimpoi said that epigrams and “serious” poetry deserve to be treaded evenly, “because humor is also serious and grave after all”. The reunion of the epigrammatists from both sides of the Prut has become traditional and is “an exchange of experience between the two neighbor countries, where the art of epigram still thrives as a literary style”, said George Corbu. “The Moldovan epigrammatists are really impressive, especially Efim Tarlapan, their bellwether, whom I credit with the great merit of building an anthology of Romanian epigrams, which includes our Moldovan colleagues. We share one language and one spirit, and Romania and the Republic of Moldova are the only countries in the world where the epigram is still cultivated”, George Corbu pointed out. Among the organizers of the event were the Chisinau City Hall and Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca, who had a “humorous” meeting with the participants earlier on Saturday. “Often with the help of a good joke you can break a deadlock which you can't manage to break in enduring talks”, said he in a rather serious tone. Though the greatest part of the epigrammatic shafts are usually directed at politics and politicians, some of the politicians cared to join the Festival, and among them Serafim Urecheanu (AMN leader), Mihai Ghimpu (PL leader), Vladimir Filat (PLDM leader), and Nicolae Rusu (poet and member of the European Action Movement). The First International Festival of Romanian Epigram took place in 1997.