On Wednesday, April 22, from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Davies Student Center’s Ojibwe Ballroom, the annual International Poetry Reading event will be held. Featuring poetry read in over 30 languages, the event is a place of multicultural and intercultural celebration. 

This year, the event will be celebrating its 20th anniversary since its conception in 2006. 

The event is open to UW-Eau Claire students, faculty, alumni and retired faculty members alike. Furthermore, the event is open to Eau Claire residents, encouraging the fostering of a community where culture is shared and cultivated. 

Kaishan Kong, a Chinese language professor, TEFL certificate advisor and faculty advisor for the International Poetry Reading organization team, said the event was the creation of former UW-Eau Claire faculty members Audrey Fessler and Jeff Vahlbusch. 

“I was a reader for two years, and at the time, the co-founders of the event decided to move to another university,” Kong said. “2015 or ‘16, they announced that would be the last year of poetry reading. So, I started taking over the organization part; I’ve been doing this for 10 years.” 

Kong serves as one part of the organization committee for this event. She is joined by two other faculty members and three student co-organizers. The two other faculty members are Michael Gehrke and Josh Bauer, both LTS employees. 

The student co-organizers are: Iryana Levada, a third-year political science, geography and economics student; Elva Crist, a third-year English linguistics, history, German and TEFL student; and Thrisha Kumar, a second-year graphic communications student. 

Kong said they usually send out a call for readers for the event annually at the end of the fall semester or the beginning of the spring semester. Following this, the final list of readers is selected, usually right after spring break. 

Last year, Levada was the sole student organizer of the event, but this year she is joined by Crist and Kumar. After reading for one year, Levada said she became motivated to become more involved with the event and assist in planning. 

“When I first started, I was just excited to promote my culture to showcase Ukraine at an internationally minded event at UW-Eau Claire,” Levada said. “But then, as I joined, I realized that it’s probably one of the highlights of my year.” 

Levada said this event is a way to really appreciate the power of language and the ways that events like this can bring the community together. 

“Even if I do not understand the poems when I hear them, there is something beautiful about having all of the community members who know different languages come together,” Levada said. “It’s just powerful how it brings the community together and the students together.”

Given the presence of three student co-organizers this year, Kong said, there’s a lot of interdisciplinary work going into this. Part of this is the marketing of the event, spearheaded by Kumar. 

“I make the TV advertisements that you see on campus and the posters, and I take care of the Instagram,” Kumar said. “I’m also working on the booklets, and this year we have a journal kind of souvenir for people who are participating.” 

Each year, a booklet is put together for the event featuring every single poem read at the event. These booklets are available to all attendees of the event. Booklets from past years are available in McIntyre Library’s archive, Kong said. 

Kumar is also designing a banner for the event, one that could be used in future iterations of this event. 

“[The event] is really great for international students, and I think it’s also good for the community outside of UW-Eau Claire,” Kumar said. “Diversity is represented, and people can learn more about [different] cultures.” 

The event will feature a variety of languages. From Spanish to Japanese, and even some fictional ones as well. 

“People are getting more and more creative,” Kong said. “They started reading the language in Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings.” 

Given that this year marks the 20th International Poetry Reading, Kong said the committee wanted to find a way to get the founders of the event involved. Fessler and Vahlbusch will kick off the event, each reading a poem in German virtually. 

This event is sponsored by the Center for International Education (CIE), Levada said, and this year the event received a grant from the Council on Internationalization and Global Engagement. 

Beyond involvement with the CIE, the event is also co-organized by the International Student Association and Namaste, with Levada and Kumar being members of each, respectively. 

In addition to being exposed to a variety of poetry spoken in different languages, attendees will also be able to sample cuisines from around the world. 

“We’ll have quite an international cuisine,” Levada said. “There will be gochujang shrimp, crispy falafel and chicken skewers with garlic. Basic platter items, pita chips, tangy Asian slaw and cake.”  

Mark your calendars for this celebration of culture, creativity and community. 

Hirata can be reached at [email protected].