Enlarge Poets (L-R): Varanrat Torok, Ingrid Shlegel, Samantha Richards, Jessica Abarca and Lucila Ruvalcaba.

Posted: August 11th, 2010 Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman

Need proof that Charlotte is now an international urban center? More than 110 different languages are represented in the Charlotte Mecklenburg school system, up from 95 two years ago. And one way to cross cultural boundaries is through sharing those languages.

On Sunday (Aug. 8), the Levine Museum of The New South held the third, and final, installment of Verano Multicultural series, designed to inspire people to cross cultural boundaries. That's when five very different women shared their favorite poems ... both in their native language as well as languages they've studied through the years.

Samantha Richards, 16 and a student at Providence Day, read several of her poems, including one she wrote in Spanish. "It's nothing really," she said before the event began. But once behind the podium, she admitted writing poetry in another language -- even if you've studied it for six years as she has -- is not easy.

She wasn't the only person to share poetry written in their non-native tongue. Jessica Abarca, originally from Mexico, shared poetry she wrote too, and one she wrote in English. Through her poems, she encouraged people to tackle their dreams and to realize that we are works of art.

Varanrat Torok, a library employee, shared an award-winning poem from Thailand, her homeland. Entitled, "Sunflowers," she first read the poem, then played a version recorded as a song. It reads, in part, "No matter where we are, far and away, or at the end of the horizon, we always miss our motherland from which we are long parted."

Ingrid Schlegel read a couple poems in German. One was originally a song that's quite famous in Europe. It's entitled, "Nobody's perfect." It details the wants of a young man, setting out to conquer the world. Eventually he reevaluates his life and realizes, no matter how much money he has, no matter how many places he visits or how many women he's loved, everyone is flawed.

The event organizer, Lucila Ruvalcaba, says she's always been fascinated by other languages. A native of Mexico, she couldn't have made that fascination more clear than when she read a poem in Portuguese, then another in French and yet another in Italian.

At the end, what was most striking is, regardless of the language barriers, the sentiments behind the poems were very human. Success. Money. Love. Fame. Heartbreak. Death. Those themes conjure the same emotions everywhere, despite the fact that there are more than 110 ways to say each of those words.

I left realizing, more than ever, that we really are all much more alike than we are different. Love, after all, by any other name, is still love. And, poetry, in every language, is still a powerful way to express ideas, cross cultural boundaries and bring people together.

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