Poetry is a Time Machine: A Virtual Classroom Visit from Poet Iryna Shuvalova

Posted on April 25, 2025

Earlier this month, WWB Campus facilitated a virtual classroom visit with poet Iryna Shuvalova for a Staten Island high school ELA class. Shuvalova spoke with the students about writing poetry during wartime, her time living in China, and how poetry can act as a time machine. Read teacher Leighton Suen's recap of the classroom visit below!

In early April, I had the honor of hosting Ukrainian poet and scholar Iryna Shuvalova in my 11th grade ELA class at New Dorp High School. When I first came across her poems on Words Without Borders, I was struck by her use of imagery, metaphors, and symbolism in her poems. For example, in her poem “vesper,” she writes:

so hard to hate someone at the end of a long day
when the distance between our morning and evening selves
lengthens like the shadows of the trees at the boundary between two fields

I knew immediately that I wanted to teach these poems to my students. I am currently preparing them to take the ELA Regents, a state exam required for graduation in New York, in June, and this exam always includes multiple-choice questions about a poem. I knew that these poems, full of literary elements, would be the perfect addition to my curriculum.

First, I created a unit where students would analyze many of her poems. For two weeks, the students wrote comments and questions about the poems, formulated themes and central ideas, and drew pictures inspired by the imagery in the poems. At the end of the unit, Words Without Borders fully sponsored a Google Meet between the poet and my students. I feel so lucky and grateful that Iryna Shuvalova agreed not only to meet with my students, but to read her poems in English and Ukrainian, as well as answer plenty of student questions in a Q&A session.

After Iryna Shuvalova read some of her poems in Ukrainian, my students were enchanted. One of my students responded, “Ukrainian is a beautiful language.” During the Q&A session, my students were able to ask her many of their burning questions, including what inspired her to write the poems that we read and other poets that she recommended reading. One of my students, who recently immigrated from Ukraine, even asked a question in Ukrainian, which he felt more comfortable speaking in than in English, and Iryna Shuvalova translated the question into English for the rest of us before answering.

Overall, the visit by Iryna Shuvalova was an amazing end to my poetry unit. My students loved being able to meet with her and talk with her. After the visit, one of my students remarked that she was “so nice because she took the time to answer all of our questions.” Another student said that this was their first time meeting an author. This visit is one that I will not forget in the near future, and I’m sure that my students will not forget it either. Thank you, Iryna Shuvalova, and thank you, Words Without Borders, for this amazing opportunity!

Interested in setting up a virtual author visit for your class? Contact us!