On Weds. April 16 a poetry reading was held in the Science Conference Center. Various seventh period english classes were in attendance. Rice University’s Chao Center for Asian Studies had a week long conference of various visiting Asian poets and artists. Two of the poets, Lynn Xu and Yang Lian, spoke to the english classes as a way of reaching out to the youth community.

Xu was born in Shanghai, graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and earned an MFA at Brown University. She has published various series on her poetry and has been featured in Best American Poetry. At the reading, Xu read from her series entitled “Earth Light” which features ten sections. During her reading, Xu explained how she likes to create a sense of movement through the language in her poetry. Xu typically creates one series of poetry a year.

Lian was born in Switzerland and was raised in Beijing. He has published various volumes of poetry, prose and essays in Chinese. He has been nominated for a Nobel Prize in Literature  and won the Flaiano International Prize for Poetry. Lian spoke at the reading about his inspiration to love literature from his days in high school. He explained that poetry is a sport of literature. When reading his work entitled “Traveling With Stars,” he spoke in Chinese and a student attending the reading translated the Chinese words to English.

Sophomore Simmi Chadha, a student in Mr. Wolf’s class, was one of the students who had the opportunity to hear the poets speak.

“I thought that the speakers were very interesting and really got the audience engaged in what they were saying,” Chadha said. “I loved their work and thought they gave us a new perspective on writing and literature.”