Crossing Borders with Poetry

Dickinson hosts international festival

October 21, 2008

Poet Nathalie Handal reads her work on the first night of the festival.

Participants in the seventh annual Semana Poética—an international and multilingual poetry festival featuring poets from India, Palestine, Israel, the United States, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia—met Sunday at an opening reception hosted by President William G. Durden '71.

After the reception, the first reading was held in the atrium of Bosler Hall featuring Dickinson first-year student Merit O’Hare, recipient of the Borders Open-Door Poetry Contest, Sujata Bhatt of India and Nathalie Handal, who has lived in Europe, the United States, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Arab world.

Semana Poética is sponsored by the departments of Spanish and Portuguese, English, German studies, French and Francophone studies, Italian studies, Russian studies, Judaic studies, East Asian studies, The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues, the Department of Global Education, and the Office of the Dean of Students.

The festival will run through Thursday, Oct. 23.