Award-winning poet Mark Brazaitis spoke in the Student Center Thursday night and read from several of his poetry books.

Brazaitis shared poems from his three-year experience as a Peace Corps volunteer and technical trainer in Guatemala. Some of these experiences have been published in a book entitled “The Other Language: Poems,” which won the 2008 ABZ Poetry Prize.

“I have four books and three and a half of them are about Guatemala, which I never would have experienced had I not joined the Peace Corps,” he said.

Brazaitis shared poems inspired by his Peace Corps experience because of the recent death of Peace Corps founder Sargent Shriver as well as the Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary.

Brazaitis credits his decision of joining the Peace Corps to a curiosity of the world and a desire to make a difference.

“I was interested in doing something good for the world, and thought that joining would be worthwhile,” he said. “I was interested in seeing different parts of the world, not just as a tourist, but from the inside, and I was interested in living in and experiencing a different culture. So the Peace Corps was a great way of doing all of those.”

Jay Lacure, junior English major, liked how Brazaitis presented his poetry clearly.

“It was very vivid, his imagery described Guatemala well,” he said.

David Hassler, director of the Wick Poetry Center, introduced Brazaitis as an old friend, commenting on Brazaitis’s influence on writing.

“His poems remind us of the common essential humanity we share with each other and between cultures,” Hassler said. “Indeed, his are often poems of gratitude for the gift that otherness can bring into our lives when we are open to encounter it, and truly converse with it.”

Brazaitis shared a poem called “Gemelas,” published in the book “The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala,” which won the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Award. The poem is about a girl who struggles to separate her identity from her twin sister’s.

Jamie Bloss, senior English major, said she enjoyed how Brazaitis was so open with his poetry.

“He is so honest and genuine,” she said. “His poems are very straightforward and clear.”

Along with the serious tone of the Guatemala poems, Brazaitis also shared humorous poems, such as “The Pulitzer,” which is full of sarcasm about the unfairness of not winning a Pulitzer Prize.

“The Pulitzer” was one of several new poems Brazaitis shared, including “Could We” and “The Endless Knot.” These poems focused on other portions of his life other than his experiences in the Peace Corps.

Brazaitis’s other works include “Steal My Heart,” winner of the 2001 Maria Thomas Fiction Award by Peace Corps Writers and “An American Affair: Stories,” which received the 2004 George Garrett Prize in Short Fiction.

Contact Kelly Tunney at [email protected].