With various recreational activities, the Universidad Industrial de Santander (UIS) commemorated the Spanish Language and Book Day, encouraging the university community to strengthen reading and writing habits, especially around poetry, a literary genre that has enriched the language over the centuries.
The Central Library was the setting for a day called “In Verse and Prose”, in which attendees were immersed in the poetic universe through readings and declamations by renowned authors of international relevance.
“Celebrating Language Day is very significant for libraries, because three essential elements converge in them: space, content and, above all, readers. Without readers, a library loses its raison d’être. On this occasion, we invited the university community to read poetry and, as an incentive, those who participated could take home a book as a gift,” said Pedro García, director of the UIS Central Library.
Attendees highlighted the value of rediscovering poetry as a form of artistic and cultural expression, as well as the opportunity to remember authors whose works have contributed to the development of the Spanish language and its literature.
“I thought it was a wonderful activity. We were able to take away a book just for learning and reciting a poem correctly. These types of initiatives motivate reading and make us get closer to literature,” said Liseth Sanchez, a student of the Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics.
The event was also attended by international visitors, such as members of the Quala company from the Dominican Republic, who expressed their admiration for the commitment of the UIS to the promotion of culture and language.
“Sincerely, I had never witnessed a similar activity, not even at my university in the Dominican Republic. I think it is an excellent proposal to celebrate this date,” said Isabel Rosas, representative of the company.
Another activity carried out on this date was the poetry workshop ‘Improversando’, the first of the events with which the Cultural Direction of the UIS commemorates this occasion and invites to inhabit reading.
This workshop explored literary resources of the poetic universe such as metaphor, simile and dichotomies through creative writing exercises, and performance with the body, voice and stage presence as a vital part of the poem.
“We developed a slam poetry workshop in which we explored literary figures to create poetic images and improvisation as a tool for artistic creation. We felt that the workshop was a lot of fun, people acquired a lot of knowledge and more confidence when expressing their written art in front of a stage”, expressed about the event Juan Bareño Amaro, member of the Aurora Collective and conductor of this space together with Jhimmy Sanchez.
The Book and Reading Day activities will continue until Friday, April 25.
