Beyond Robert Frost
PSU’s World Poetry Slam
Sarah Liebowitz
A&E Editor
The World Poetry Slam at PSU represented poets from around the globe on Monday Nov. 16 as part of International Education Week. The open-mic style event featured poems in Spanish, French, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, American Sign Language, and others, accompanied by an English translation. The event began at 6:30 p.m. in the Union Grille, located in the HUB.
PSU student Ronnie Content
signing a song at the World Poetry Slam event.
CLOCK PHOTO/JENNIFER TEPPER
Dr. Wilson Garcia, Spanish contracted faculty, was the event coordinator. He described the event as an opportunity for students, native and non-native speakers of English, to share their favorite poems by authors who are not native English speakers.
“Poems capture the essence of what we want to say or how we feel,” said Garcia. “They don’t require long descriptions, so you can transmit a thought, a feeling, a moment and it’s very simple, but it’s also very synthesized content in one poem.”
“It’s also an easy way for those students who are not [native] English speakers to just give us a little snip of the sounds or the rhythms of the language,” he said.
Jane Bjerklie-Barry, international student adviser, has co-coordinated International Education Week for the past eight years. Other events during international week included a parade of flags, panel discussions, talks about the art exhibit 10,000 Steps, and the Global Formal Fashion Show. This was the first year the World Poetry Slam was a part of the week.
Years ago, the department of language and linguistics held an international poetry reading on a smaller scale.
“We thought that it would be a good opportunity to expand [the event] to the rest of the university, and also to create some awareness that English is just one language of over 6,000 languages in the world today,” said Garcia.
Garcia said that engaging in different languages will not only improve students’ English, it will allow them to see the world from a different perspective.
“With our increasing international and minority student populations in the campus, it’s a way to make our campus more inclusive,” he said.
“Even though I think English is a beautiful language, and I love it a lot, there is also a lot of beauty in other languages.”
For more information on International Education Week, visit https:// www.plymouth.edu/global/3797/3797/