John Champe High School’s third annual Poetry Out Loud finals took place last Thursday. The contest is a nationally-sponsored high school contest structured like a spelling bee, where instead of spelling words students are reciting (previously published) poems.
There are a lot of folks who deserve credit for helping make the night a success….
-Aylssa Russell and Alyson Mullee, two of the four teachers in our English department who participated in the event this year with their classes. Without their participation over the past month, the event wouldn’t have happened. They deserve praise (along with Peter Kim, who did it with all his classes), since the winners of their class competitions made up all the participants in the school finals. (I did the competition with my two classes of seniors, but the winners refused to go to the extra length of memorizing a second poem for the finals [come on, seniors!]).
-Jesse Dill, last year’s second-place finalist, and the night’s master of ceremonies. He agreed without hesitation when I asked if he would host the event, meeting with me several times throughout the week to confer on the script and the night’s proceedings. His joyfulness belies a fearless tenacity, a love for learning for which most students only offer lip service.
-Jeff Horvath, the Instructor Facilitator for Technology at Champe, who was in charge of the livestream, which he has since posted in the archives on the school website. Jeff truly embodies the ideals of an instructional facilitator, offering thoughtful ways to integrate technology to meaningfully move forward educational goals. He also sacrificed his own time to make it possible, staying late on a Thursday night to supervise the many different camera rigs used to film the event.
-Aubrey Skavdahl and Adam Howells, two colleagues who agreed to serve as judges.
This was my third year organizing the event, which I felt went smoothly despite a few technical snags. The POL banner, for example, was wrinkled after spending a year in my basement. Certain Youtube personalities claim that a blast of sustained hot air can smooth out wrinkles in vinyl. After spending thirty minutes standing in front of the banner with my wife’s purple hair dryer (and making my TA do it for another thirty minutes), I can confidently say this is FALSE. But, as Jeff pointed out to me, no one is looking at the wrinkles on the banner — they’re there to watch the students. So many parents showed up we had to grab extra chairs from adjacent classrooms, another small problem that was easily solved with student volunteers. Aside from the livestream cutting out for one student’s performance, there were really no other technical flaws. The environment was suitable for viewers to enjoy the competition.
And was it a strong competition. Click through the livestream to any performer and admire the student’s attention to all aspects of recitation. Within the very strict physical parameters of the competition (they must stand in front of the mic, which they cannot touch) they were able to embody the messages from a wide variety of classic and contemporary writers — Robert Graves, Maya Angelou, Calvin Forbes, Huang Fan. During the awards I made it a point to stress to the competitors their talent and poise. It was markedly stronger than the previous two school finals. Part of that may have come from the fact that we held the competition a week later than in year’s past, offering students more time to prepare. But that’s probably selling short the students’ talent and dedication. Multiple participants showed up very early in their excitement to perform, and offered valuable assistance setting up the room.
These students’ talent was made all the more focused due to our location, which changed from the library as in year’s past to the peer tutoring room upstairs. I was always frustrated at the last two competitions by the lack of parent support. Most competitors were dropped off by their parents and instructed to text when they were done. I’ll allow that some parents have busy evening schedules. That didn’t make it any less frustrating to have the competition take place in a mostly empty library, the students’ words echoing off the bookshelves. This year the peer tutoring room was packed to full capacity, making for a more intense environment that I think brought out the best in students’ performances.
This year’s winner was Piper Won, the same winner as last year and the year prior. Piper will move on to regional competition in Manassas this winter.
Her advice to future performers was to “Pick a poem that isn’t crazy short or crazy long, make it something that you relate to, make sure that you can find particular areas where you can insert your own expression.”
She reflected on the value choosing poems that connect with you. “The first poem I ever did was [Claude McKay’s] “If We Must Die”, because I can be a stubborn person, and I identified with the heroic tone and assertive tone.”
Other participants commented on the benefits of watching others perform. “I think it’s really interesting to see the poems others pick,” said runner-up Carolina Muñoz-Velazquez. “If there is one poem performed by two performers, it’s fun to see their different interpretations. It’s fun to bond with your peers who are all nervous and in the same boat together.”
Carolina, a two-year participant in Poetry Out Loud, then made an important observation about the great value of Poetry Out Loud as a way to highlight talent in the school, which ultimately is the reason I enjoy organizing it every year.
“You’re around all these different classmates from different grades and you get to recognize that they have all that talent,” she said. “Poetry Out Loud gives a lot of opportunities to kids whose talent goes completely under the radar.