“The idea is to listen to the actually musicality of the language and the poetry, rather than the meaning behind the words,” assistant director of the RCAH Center for Poetry Laurie Hollinger said. “It’s just another way to appreciate language as a whole.”

Residential College of the Arts and Humanities and English sophomore Grace Carras was another participant in the event, performing a German piece called “Du im Voraus verlorne Geliebte.”

Carras emphasized that this event is special to MSU and RCAH’s Center for Poetry. She is an intern at the center.

“This is a very cool event to be a part of, there is nothing really like it,” Carras said.

Carras has been involved in poetry for most of her life and said she has a deep love for the rhetoric art.

“I have always really loved poetry and it has been a big part of my life,” Carras said. “Everyone has their thing that they’ve always resonated with, and mine’s poetry.”

Residential College of the Arts and Humanities and anthropology junior Sarah Teppen presented two pieces in the, one in French and one in Korean.

The French poem was “Au cabaret-vert” by Rimbaud, and the Korean poem was personally written by Teppen herself.

Teppen is minoring in both Korean and French, and initially wrote the Korean piece for one of her college courses.

Teppen said she finds that poetry is a unique communicative tool because it is so versatile, applying to both poetry writers and readers.

“In poetry, different audiences can interpret so many different things and there is so much possibility for metaphors, and different parallels that people can draw and relate to the poem,” Teppen said. “It’s a really neat and creative tool for communication.”

Because there were no translations provided for the foreign poetry, Teppen felt that this created a more mysterious and creative environment during the festival.

“You don’t really know what they’re saying, but that adds to the beauty of it,” Teppen said. “It’s like looking at a language without the bias.”