23 languages, 27 readers and 32 poems – including 7 original works. Numbers are but a simple abstraction of facts, but they tell us a lot. It is diversity, creativity and initiative that the students represented through poetry in its most authentic way. On the evening of 28th September, our international community experienced a powerful catharsis through creativity and diversity in the first Poetry Reading session of this academic year, organized by the Library Events Committee.
Each poem has a story of its own. Participants made a brief introduction to their poems before each performance, delivering messages from personal, inner conflict or political controversy. The audience attentively listened to the performance, each distinct in linguistic formulation and underlying significance of the message. Some sang, some recited along with the guitar. The themes addressed in the different poems included character development, love, politics, patriotism and history.
Melos Shtaloja, a second year student from Kosovo, presented verses of his own poem entitled Hijet (Shadows). His poem, interrupted by five screams, describes the painful struggle of his father whom he lost in the Kosovo War. Written as the father’s emotive testimony in English and Albanian, its simple but precise verses were so compelling that they deeply moved the audience.
Second year student Mariantonietta (Italy) says “The atmosphere was very intense with everyone’s wish to share a very special moment. Several students read their own poems in order to share with others their identity, their past and their dreams for the future. Actor and director Roberto Benigni has said that ‘poetry has the great gift of making us feel inside emotions and sensations that we did not know we could feel’ and I think all of us there would agree with that. To experience this with so many of our friends here at the College was really meaningful”.
It won’t be long until the next poetry reading session is organised by the Library Events Committee – probably before winter break!
(by Yoshiyuki Ishikawa, Japan)
