Massasoit Celebrates World Poetry Day 2019

On March 21, 2019, Massasoit celebrated World Poetry Day, a UNESCO designated global holiday, with a series of events promoting poetry as a catalog for dialogue and peace. More than 100 attended the poetry writing workshop facilitated by international spoken word poet U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo. A campus community reading followed, featuring U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo as headlining poet, and students and faculty reading their original poetry. The students who read were selected from a pool of many applicants, and Professor Katherine DiMarca of the English Department emceed. In the evening event, Connective Threads: Voices of Our Global Tapestry, 11 poets, representing 11 languages and cultures, took the stage reading in their native languages with an English translation in the background. Dr. Angelina Avedano of the English Department was the Master of Ceremonies and facilitated a question and answer session afterwards.

World Poetry Day was organized by a faculty/staff team and sponsored by the Office of Diversity & Inclusion, Student Life, TRIO, the Massasoit Library, and the Division of Humanities & Fine Arts. View the full gallery of photos.