Poet and professor Patricia Wesley said she believes poetry is meant to be read aloud.

Because of this belief, she's encouraging students to come to today's Art of Poetry event.

"I think there is a difference between anyone reading poetry and listening to the poets read their own work," she said.

The Art of Poetry event will be held at 12:10 this afternoon in the Palmer Museum of Art.

The event is one of a recurring series that invites professors and others affiliated with the university to present their own poetry in a visual art setting.

Today's event is the second of the semester.

The events are traditionally held the first Wednesday of the month during the academic year, said Dana Kletchka, curator of education at the museum.

"If you're interested in language, poetry and imagery, it's a really special event," Kletchka said.

The series started during the 2008 spring semester, Kletchka said, adding that the idea came to her and her colleague Julia Kasdorf, an associate professor of English, when they were discussing the interconnectivity of words and images.

Together they decided to begin the Art of Poetry event, which presents two or three poets each semester reading their work in front of art exhibits.

"We thought it'd be wonderful to feature people's work as a really nice partnership," Kletchka said about the event.

She said Wesley, an assistant professor of English at Penn State Altoona, has an interesting background story for her art.

"Her poetry is deeply personal and very intimate," Kletchka said. "She makes a connection with audiences that is profound."

Wesley, who moved to the United States from Liberia in 1991 and lived in Michigan for 12 years before moving to Pennsylvania in 2003, said she has given poetry readings all over the world.

Her poetry has many themes including love, family, life in the United States, strong women and the injustices and suffering of the Liberian civil war she escaped.

Really, she writes about everything, she said.

"My poetry is concerned about the world," she said. "Not just the world I live in, but the world other people live in."

Her suggestion for students, though they may be tired from election night, is to come because she said she will wake them up.

"I think people need to go someplace where they will be alone and thinking about things happening in the world," she said.

People who want to understand poetry should listen to poets read it aloud, Wesley said.

"I believe that when people come to my poetry readings they benefit a lot," she said.

She added listening to her poetry is a "refreshing experience" because of the mixed African and American traditions in her work.

"You never know what you're going to hear," she said.